


Tales of Mister Bug and Kit Noire

by Omega (imbadwithusernames)



Series: Tales of Mister Bug and Kit Noire [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien needs glasses, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Power Swap, Alya Césaire Ships It, Chat Noir Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Lady Noir, F/M, Family Swap AU, Gabriel Agreste's A+ Parenting, Grammarly is my beta rip, I plan on salting Fu enough to preserve him for another 186 years, Kwami Swap, Ladybug Adrien Agreste | Mister Bug, Nino Lahiffe Ships It, Nino is best boy, everyone ships it, oblivious children, this is liable to be mostly crack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:54:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 44,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26093704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imbadwithusernames/pseuds/Omega
Summary: I was bored, and the thought crossed my mind.What if I take this AU (Kwami Swap) and this AU (Family Swap) and smash them together.What happened was this.Also, I’m still salty over how much of an asshole Marinette was in Reflekdoll so that may have something to with this.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Alya Césaire & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Nino Lahiffe, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Alya Césaire/Nino Lahiffe
Series: Tales of Mister Bug and Kit Noire [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1894633
Comments: 30
Kudos: 119





	1. Origins: Mister Bug and Kit Noire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Kit Noire was originally called Chatte Noire. When I read Reyemile's comment about why that was probably not a good idea, I proceeded to have several heart attacks and then change the name.  
> Thank you for bringing it to my attention, Reyemile  
> I'm not the first person to have this idea, obviously, but I think it's a really neat concept.

You may think that asking to go to school would make any parents absolutely ecstatic, but not in Marinette's case. As soon as the words, 'Father, I would like to go to public school.' left her mouth, her father, Gabriel Agreste, ordered her bodyguard (aptly nicknamed 'The Gorilla') to keep her in her room for an indeterminate amount of time, most likely the rest of her teenage life.

In her situation, being forced to stay in her room _should_ have felt like paradise. Her room had everything a teenager could ever wish for! An entire floor dedicated to a library of every video game, book, and movie she had ever asked, a nook where she could read in peace perched above the entrance with a harp that she liked to play as a hobby, a desk with four computer monitors, a huge pink bed that was soft enough to melt into, a climbing wall, a billiards table, and an entire corner dedicated to her designing hobby.

It was a **prison**. Every morning Marinette would wake up feeling like she was a princess, and this was her inescapable tower.

When Marinette asked a second time to attend school, she wasn’t surprised in the slightest when her father told her no. At that point, she decided to take the matter into her own hands. Sure, she had to bribe the Gorilla, but he was a big softie. He may have been a titan among men (Marinette saw him punch through a brick wall one time just to scare off a fan), but he had an insatiable sweet tooth, and fortunately, Marinette was a pretty good baker.

Her plan was simple. Dress inconspicuously (a dull pink t-shirt and some old blue jeans should do the trick!) as to not attract any unwanted attention, pay off the Gorilla with macaroons and hug him to make sure he knows how much he’s appreciated, and slip through the front door without Nathalie or her father noticing.

So here she was, sprinting down the street to try and make it on time. She didn’t want to be late on the first day of school, after all!

**********

“Move it, Deejay!”

_Great_ , Adrien thought, pushing up his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose, _Of course, she’s in our class again. I won’t say I told you so, Maman, but I told you so._

Adrien pivoted in his seat to face the bratty blonde, “Chloe, maybe-”

“Can it, Baker Boy!” She snapped, “I need that seat open!”

To Adrien and Nino’s relief, their friend Alya roughly slammed her bag down in the seat beside Chloe and snapped right back, “Hey! Who says you get to say who sits where?”

“Wh- My daddy is the mayor!”

Adrien could feel the unsounded groan from all of his classmates, not unfamiliar in the slightest. Chloe used that excuse to win pretty much any argument or discussion she had ever been in, and it got old a long time ago. Despite that, he was genuinely curious about the girl’s intentions, “What’s so important about a seat being open?”

The Mayor’s daughter, as she so frequently reminded them all, let out a loud and condescending laugh that was most definitely aimed at Adrien and his bro, “HAH! Haven’t you heard?”

Her loud laugh had garnered the attention of the entire classroom, yet none responded.

“I don’t think any of us have heard.” Adrien snarked, smirking at the fuming girl, “Please, enlighten us.”

The unnatural grin that grew on Chloe’s face made Adrien internally recoil, “My _best friend_ ” She put extra emphasis on those two words, “Marinette will be attending this class, and you, Baker Boy, are in. Her. Seat.”

**********

There it was! Collège Françoise Dupont, her future school, and it was so close that she could almost touch it! The excitement filling her veins was such an unfamiliar feeling, it was-

“Marinette!”

_FUCK._

“Please, you know that your father doesn’t approve of this!” Nathalie, her father’s assistant, called as she exited a silver vehicle parked at the curb and began striding towards the girl.

“I don’t care!” she shouted, her voice laced with uncharacteristic distaste.

“Marinette-”

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a red blob struggling in the middle of the street. Upon closer inspection, she found herself staring at an older man in a red aloha shirt who seemed to have fallen and dropped his cane out of reach, and everybody was ignoring his obvious pain. She didn’t have to think twice before jogging to his side and pulling him to his feet, propping him up as he regained control of his cane.

“Thank you, young lady.” He bowed his head in thankfulness.

“It’s my pleasure.” She gently smiled back, knowing that Nathalie had blocked the school’s entrance. Her chance was gone.

“Please, don’t tell father.” She pleaded, keeping her head low as she approached the stoic woman. The only response she received was being led back to the dismal car to await the verbal lashing she would most definitely receive when they arrived at home.

Unbeknownst to her, the man she had helped stand threw his cane over his shoulder and began whistling, sauntering off like he hadn’t just been writhing on the concrete.

**********

Chloe’s scoff upon being asked ‘who’s Marinette’ began projecting enough spite to kill a rhinoceros, “WhO’s MaRiNeTtE?!” She mocked, using her hand to imitate him as if her mouth were too good to speak those words, “Only the most talented, most beautiful, most _my best friend_ in the world! She’s the daughter of Gabriel Agreste, you know, the famous fashion designer?!”

Adrien and Nino remained just as confused, but Alya squeaked. She must have recognized the name.

“Wait wait wait, she’s coming here?” The ombre haired girl asked, her voice full of hope.

“Ugh! Yes, of course, that’s what I’ve been saying!” Chloe hissed, “And if you think I’m going to let her sit with you three, you’re sorely mistaken, so move it!”

“Miss Bourgeois, please take your seat.”

_Thank GOD for Mlle. Bustier._ Adrien mentally sighed as the teacher entered the room. Chloe made a move to protest, but Mlle. Bustier was quick to point out the empty seats on the other side of the room.

“But-”

“Mlle. Bourgeois, please take a seat. Class is beginning.”

Chloe reluctantly sulked over to the empty desk, glaring at Adrien and his friends the entire time.

“Thank you. Now, those of you who have P.E., please report to the stadium. M. D’argencourt is awaiting you there. The rest of you may go to the library-”

“KIM!”

Though much of the class had already begun to exit, several students were quick to leave at the sound of Ivan’s anger.

“Ivan, what’s going on?” Mlle. Bustier calmly asked as Ivan raised his fist.

“It’s Kim! He… I’m so gonna-”

“Ivan!" She gasped, pointing to the door as the large boy advanced further, "Go to the principal’s office right now!”

Unbeknownst to the world, a creepy old guy known as Hawk Moth was sitting in a room full of butterflies, ready to prey on his negative emotions as if they were an antelope, and he was the lion.

**********

Just as Marinette expected, as soon as they got home, her father was waiting for her at the top of the stairs, his disappointed yet emotionless eyes never leaving her as she was escorted back to her cell. He didn’t need to say anything to let her know she was never going to leave the house again.

It was unfair. Why did she have to deal with this? Being cooped up at home for her entire life with no friends other than (ugh) Chloe, that stuck up brat that her father had decided was somehow good enough to be her only regular human interaction other than himself, the Gorilla, and Nathalie for the majority of her time. Running down the street that morning was the most freedom that she’d ever had in her entire life. 

For the past hour, she had been browsing her collection of video games and movies, never actually selecting one to play or watch. Her backpack remained on the floor below her, the contents spread out as a result of it bouncing off of the couch after being violently pitched across the room.

“Is it so much to ask to have a sense of normalcy?” She mumbled, finally dragging out the case labeled ‘UMS 3’, “To make more than one friend? To leave the house?”

_Of course it is,_ she thought, _Father needs to keep his eye on me at all times._

When she finally reached the pristine white couch, she collapsed, not even bothering to put the game into the console. To her dismay, her head collided with something very solid and very painful.

“Ow!” She hissed, rubbing the back of her head with one hand and blindly reaching for the offending object with the other. To her surprise, she lifted a wooden jewelry box into her vision. It was dark and octagonal, entirely out of place in her pearly white and rosy pink room.

“What’s this doing here?” She wondered aloud, opening the box. She was forced to clench her eyes shut as a bright green ball of energy floated out of the container, circling above her for a moment before settling and fading into what appeared to be a floating, tiny, bug-like cat.

“Um-”

It cut her off by yawning loudly and obnoxiously, stretching it’s tiny body and revealing two wide green eyes.

“Whoa.” she marveled, “What are you?”

The cat-bug blinked at her a few times before finally speaking.

“I’m HUNGRY!”

**********

To say Adrien was surprised when Ivan’s voice came out of the stone monster would be an understatement. Ivan may come across as big and mean, but he’s very friendly once you get to know him, and he wasn’t the type of person to turn into a supervillain.

“Dude, you’re so lucky that you live right across the road!” Nino muttered as the ground shook once more.

Adrien nearly tripped over his own feet at the statement, “Dude, you know you can come with me! We’re bros!”

Nino shrugged, holding out his arms to stabilize himself, “I should probably go home, so my parents don’t think I got eaten by a rock monster. Thanks for the offer, though, bro.”

“No problem, bro.”

“Bro.”

“Ahem.” Alya cut them off, “If you two are quite done.”

“Sorry, bro.”

“Yeah, my bad, bro.”

The bespectacled girl raised her fists as if to choke them both out, “Grr… well, have fun being ‘bros’ alone because I am not dealing with that. Besides, why get stuck in your room when you could be chasing a supervillain?”

It was Nino’s turn to trip, “Dude, what? Are you insane?”

Alya shoved her phone in the DJ's face, showing her background that displayed the superhero Majestia, “Where there’s a supervillain, there’s a superhero not far behind!” and before they could protest, she had sprinted off.

“Dude.” Nino gasped.

“I know. Come on, let’s-”

Adrien found himself interrupted by an older man in a red aloha shirt who seemed to have been knocked down by the shaking ground. He was quick to assist the man in returning to his feet, only letting him stand on his own once the rumbling in the earth had reduced to the point that it wouldn’t knock him over.

“Thank you, young man.” He spoke, a slight Chinese accent bleeding into his french.

Adrien sent him a broad smile, “It’s no problem, sir. I’m glad to help.” 

The older man nodded as Adrien and Nino continued walking, soon entering the bakery on the corner.

“See you later, dude!” Nino called as Adrien entered his home, the smell of freshly baked bread nearly clearing the thought of supervillains attacking from his head. After climbing the stairs to his room, he shuffled over to his desk and sat down in his computer chair. He reached to turn on his computer monitor in an attempt to follow the news on the villain, but as he reached for the button, his hand brushed across a small black box. 

“What’s this doing here?” he wondered aloud. It was almost entirely black, save for the red Chinese symbol that rested on the top. Out of curiosity, he flicked the lid open, and suddenly a bright pink light filled his eyes before quickly settling and leaving a tiny red creature, red and spotted like a ladybug, floating in the middle of his room.

“Oh my.” It- no, _she_ spoke in a squeaky voice, “This is new.”

**********

To Marinette’s dismay, the cat-creature that came out of the box made it crystal clear that he would only accept cinnamon as a food source. Sure, that wasn’t the worst thing, but now Marinette would have to make excuses for stashing cinnamon sticks in her room.

“Are you gonna tell me what you are?” she groaned as he somehow gulped down a bundle of sticks despite it being several times larger than both his mouth and his body.

“Yeah, just a sec,” the cat-thing paused to burp loudly, or as loudly as the tiny thing could muster, “Okay. I’m Plagg. I’m a Kwami.”

The tiny creature flew down to her hand and lifted a finger, placing a gentle kiss on the tip of her right index, “Enchanté.”

“Nice to meet you too,” The girl lightly giggled, “But… I have no idea what a Kwami is.”

“Oh, of course not.” Plagg shrugged, “If you knew before now, I’d probably have to kill you.”

Marinette had a hard time believing that this tiny thing could kill her, “Sure.”

“Hey! I have the power to destroy anything I touch!” He proclaimed, “If I summoned my cataclysm right now, I could bring your entire house down! I sank Atlantis! I KILLED THE DINOSAURS!”

“Okay.”

“YOU… okay. Anyway, you see that ring in the box?”

Marinette gingerly removed the black ring in the box and slipped it onto her right ring finger and nearly fell off the couch as the dark color faded into a light rose gold color, “Whoa! What was that?!”

“Oh yeah. It only turns black when you transform. Otherwise, it just becomes a color that I think Is supposed to represent your wants and desires or something, but that’s never really been clear to me.”

“...Transform?”

Plagg huffed. He must have hated explaining, “Yeah. When you say the activation words, I get sucked into that ring- the miraculous of the black cat- and you transform into a superhero with the power of destruction. Got it?”

Marinette did not got it.

“What? No! This is insane!” she exclaimed, “I must be dreaming. Or maybe father is playing a prank? No, that can't be right. He has no sense of humor.”

Plagg gently came to a rest on the top of her head, settling into it as if it were a nest, “I also feel the need to tell you that nobody can know about me.”

“Oh, trust me, I wouldn’t tell father if I could turn into a superhero even if I wanted to. He probably wouldn’t even care enough to listen.”

She felt Plagg uncomfortably shuffle in her hair, “No offense, kid, but your dad sounds like a grade-A asswagon.”

“He tries!” Marinette protested, “He just wants what’s best for me. I tried to go to school this morning, and he had Nathalie- that's his assistant- chase me down and drag me back here, but that’s just because he wants to look out for me.”

Plagg groaned, nearly sliding off of her head, “Kid, school is the worst. Why would you want to go there?”

Marinette sighed longingly, “Father is a bit… overprotective. I’ve been stuck here for pretty much my whole life, homeschooled, no friends other than this girl named Chloe, who’s just a headache waiting to happen. Running away this morning was one of the first times that I’ve ever left the house with a purpose other than getting pictures taken or meeting with some stuffy rich person.”

Plagg’s silence was deafening.

“Plagg?”

“Kid, I want you to say claws out as soon as I’m done explaining. You’re gonna have some fun for once, and it’s gonna be on your terms.”

“Okay?”

“Good. I’m gonna get this done fast. When you say Claws Out, you turn into a superhero. You can choose your name, but it’s typically something along the lines of 'Chat Noir'. You’re gonna have a partner who looks kind of like a ladybug, and they have the power of creation. They can also purify the Akuma and repair any damage. Make sure they don’t forget that part.”

“What's an Akuma?”

“You’re also gonna get a staff that can extend as far as you want and also split into multiple staffs. It’s also a phone that can contact your partner. Got it?”

“You didn’t tell me what an Akuma is!”

“It’s a butterfly. Eh, you’ll figure it out. Now, come on! Say the words!”

“Uhm… claws out?”

In a flash of blue light, Plagg was gone, sucked into the ring just like he said. Marinette looked like an entirely different person. A black maybe-leather skin-tight suit replaced her other clothes completely. Blue accents, the same color as her eyes, she noted, wrapped around her forearms, knees, and waist, and lined the zipper that remained partially unzipped on her neck. The hair on top of her head had been rearranged into chaotic disarray as if she had shaken it dry after her shower in the morning instead of drying it with a towel. Trailing down her back was a messily tied braid that should have been dragging on the floor behind her, though it somehow remained aloft, flicking back and forth like a tail.

She also felt an uncontrollable urge to make cat puns and purr. _What._

She quickly rushed into her bathroom in search of a mirror. Two cat ears with the same blue accents sat on top of her head, and a solid black domino mask covered her eyes. Her eyes were entirely different, slit pupils and a sky-blue sclera replacing her human eyes.

And are those _FANGS?_

“I look amazing!” She gushed as she waltzed back into her room, spinning a few times, “Plagg, what the hell just happened?”

No response.

“Plagg?”

Nothing.

“Huh.” She shrugged, grabbing her dark silver staff from her hip. At least, she thought Plagg said it was a staff. This thing was way too small to be a staff. At least, it was until she pressed the blue paw print, causing it to extend to a reasonable length. Unfortunately, the sudden extension caused her to drop it, and it landed on the floor with a loud clang. Marinette cringed and quickly ran to hide, knowing that Nathalie would most definitely show up soon.

_Knock knock knock_

Speak of the devil…

“Marinette? Are you alright?” Nathalie questioned through the door.

“Um, yeah! I’m fine! I just…” She had no excuse, what was she going to say? “I accidentally knocked over my sewing machine!”

Nathalie was silent, and for a brief moment, Marinette thought that her newfound freedom would be gone before she could even experience it.

“...Okay. Please be more careful next time!”

“Thank god!” She breathed, returning to grab her staff that because _damn it I left it on the floor, what if she had come in here?_ She didn’t spend much time dwelling on it, because she was standing in a superhero costume, and she wanted to take it for a spin.

**********

“Are you… a genie?” Adrien asked, poking the tiny creature, “Is that jewelry box your lamp?”

“Not… not exactly?” The creature said, “I’m a Kwami. I grant powers, not wishes. Allow me to explain. My name is Tikki, and you are now the holder of the Ladybug miraculous.”

Adrien took a moment to pick up the two ladybug-themed earrings from the box, though they almost immediately became flat and silver, “What’s a miraculous?”

“A jewel that allows its user to harness the powers of their Kwami, in your case, the power of creation. You can purify Akumas and repair any damage they cause. You have the ability to summon a Lucky Charm, which gives you exactly what you need to solve an active problem.”

Adrien nodded slowly, “Cool. Cool. One question, what the hell? How on earth am I supposed to do any of that?”

“You have to put on the earrings and say ‘spots on’ to transform! And you must hurry. You have to stop Stoneheart!”

“Stoneheart?” Adrien questioned as he donned the silver earrings, “Is that the supervillain we saw earlier?”

“Yes! He has been akumatized, so you must break the object that contains the Akuma.”

“What’s an Akuma?”

“A butterfly programmed to take advantage of negative emotions and grant the victim powers, in Ivan’s case, being turned into a stone monster.”

Adrien paused to rub his temples. He could already feel a headache forming, “Tikki, there’s no way I can do this alone.”

Tikki smiled gently, “Don’t worry, Adrien! You won’t be alone! You have a partner!”

“I’m going to die today. Tikki, please make sure that my gravestone has only the freshest of memes on it.”

Tikki tilted her head to the side, and Adrien made a mental note to introduce her to memes if he survived.

Adrien sighed, trying his best to mentally prepare himself for what was about to happen, “What were the words? Spots on?”

Before Adrien knew what had happened, he was now standing in a red and black spotted suit, his hair more unkempt than ever before, falling over a red mask with black spots. His glasses had disappeared with the transformation, though his vision remained the same, if not better than before.

“No way.”

**********

Kit Noire was having the time of her life, tight roping between two buildings on her extended staff. More than once, she had nearly fallen from letting out a joyous laugh. Everything was so… open! Free! It was… what the hell, is someone screaming?

She paused to look up and was rudely met by a red and black figure slamming into her from above.

“Oh my god!” She screeched as the figure was suddenly tangled up against her, dangling from her makeshift tightrope in the strings of… is that a yoyo?

“Sorry! I’m so sorry!” the red and black figure said, “I’m still getting used to this!”

A loud burst of laughter exploded from her throat, shocking the unfamiliar boy slightly, “No, no, no, don’t apologize! I’m still learning the ropes too.”

Once the swinging slowed to a gentle sway, Marinette was finally able to see the face of her assailant, “You must be my partner, red black and blonde. I’m Kit Noire.”

The blonde boy smiled back, though his cheeks retained a dusting of red, “I’m… not sure what my superhero name is yet. I’m supposed to be ladybug themed, but I don't identify as a female, so I don’t want to be called ‘lady’ bug forever.”

“Well, Mister Bug, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Mister Bug… I like that. Say, do you know how I’m supposed to retract my yoyo?”

“My staff has buttons on it. I don’t know about-”

“Got it!”

The two heroes landed in a tangled heap on the street below, quickly followed by a staff and a yoyo.

“I’m sure that you know why we’re here.” Mister Bug said as he stood and stretched, the spotted yoyo snapping back into his hand.

“No, not really.” Kit shrugged, picking up her staff and leaning on it lazily, “My Kwami said something about butterflies, but he wasn't exactly eager to explain it. At the moment, I’m just having fun!”

A loud rumble shook the ground, nearly knocking her over as her staff shook out from underneath her elbow, “What was that?!”

“You don’t know?” Mister bug raised his eyebrows at his cat-themed partner, “There’s a supervillain attacking Paris!”

As if on cue, a building began collapsing in the distance.

“Oh, wow.” Kit mumbled, “No, I didn’t know that.”

“How on earth did you not know this was happening?” Mister Bug asked incredulously.

“I wasn’t really in the mood for television, and I guess I was far enough away not to feel the ground shaking? I don’t know!”

“No time to regret it, come on!” without thinking, Mister Bug wrapped his arm around Kit Noire’s waist and hooked his yoyo on a nearby tower. 

She squeaked at the sudden contact and quickly shoved out of his grip, “ _Hey!_ I have my own transportation!”

Mister Bug was quick to let go, his face glowing red, “Oh… I’m sorry!”

Kit Noire rolled her eyes and tapped him on the head with her stick, “Besides, if you’re going to do something like that, at least invite me to dinner first. Maybe a movie.”

“...” Mister Bug was nearly speechless, “Are you flirting with me?”

She shrugged, whacking his side with her prehensile braid as a playful smirk adorned her features, “Maybe.”

“Well… please stop? We need to find Stoneheart!”

“Need I remind you that I have no idea what we’re looking for?” the ravenette tilted her head and placed her hands on her hips judgingly, “I only just now learned that we have an actual supervillain to stop.”

“Right…” Adrien paused to recall what Ivan had turned into, “I saw it earlier, I think it looked like a guy made of rocks. Hence the name, I guess… I have no idea where to look, though.”

Kit Noire slowly looked to the cloud of dust that had risen from the collapsed building, and then back to her partner, “I don’t know about you, but I feel like that’s a pretty good place to start.” before flipping her staff around and vaulting onto a nearby building.

“Hey- Wait up!” Mister Bug called as he flicked his yoyo, soon flying through the air beside his partner. The two amateur heroes soon spotted the stone monstrosity and followed him to the Parc des Princes, where Adrien recalled that several of his classmates were with M. D’argencourt for P.E.

“Oh no, Kim!” He gasped as they landed, “Ivan is angry at Kim!”

He was quickly proven right as the stone monster screamed, “KIIIIIIIIIIIM!” and slammed into the stadium like a meteorite, giving chase to a boy with a red hoodie.

“I have no idea who those people are.” Kit shrugged, “but I can guess. Let’s go!”

She was quick to leap downwards and whack Stoneheart with her extended staff, though it proved to be futile as he only grew larger and stronger.

“Oh… shit.” she cursed, spinning her staff as a very ineffective shield as a large stone hand sent her flying to the other side of the stadium.

“NO WAY!” A feminine voice gasped from above her. Kit, from her position on the ground, was able to identify a girl with reddish-brown gradient hair and hazel eyes staring down at her with one of the most excited faces ever to grace her eyes.

“Hi I’m Alya are you a SUPERHERO?!” She screeched, causing Kit's false ears to flatten against her head. 

“Yep!” She, despite the soreness in her _everything_ from the rough landing, yipped back, “I’m Kit Noire. You should probably run.”

“Whaat? No way! What kind of idiot would miss out on a chance to see superheroes in action?!”

“Maybe- DUCK!” Kit grabbed Alya and dove to the side, narrowly avoiding herself and the girl being crushed by a soccer goal, “maybe the kind who wants to stay alive!”

Behind them, a yoyo wrapped itself around Stoneheart’s legs and tripped him, giving Mister Bug barely enough time to rejoin Kit.

“Did I mention that I have no idea what I’m doing?” He said, nervously tugging on the yoyo once more.

“OHMYGOD! _TWO_ SUPERHEROES!” Alya squealed, “What are your names? Powers? How are you going to defeat Stoneheart?”

“Just a minute, Alya…” Kit said, “Powers, of course! Why didn’t I do that to begin with? CATACLYSM!”

Dark energy surrounded her right hand, and she suddenly has a feeling that Plagg was telling the truth about the dinosaurs.

“Cool, cool.” Mister Bug nodded, “What does it do?”

Kit sliced her hands through the air, the energy leaving a trail as it traveled, “I’m not sure. My K- _mentor_ told me that if he used it, he could knock down my house, so I guess I destroy whatever I touch.”

She quickly dashed over to the fallen monster and punched into the ground underneath his feet. Suddenly, the floor of the stadium began crumbling beneath them, effectively trapping Stoneheart in the field.

“How un- _fur_ -tunate.” She quipped, leaping back to Mister Bug and Alya, “How awesome was that?”

Stoneheart roared from his trap, flailing his arms around and quickly finding a solid ground to grab onto, hoisting himself out of the rubble.

“Not awesome. Super not awesome!” Mister Bug yelped, “Oh geez, what was my power?! LUCKY CHARM!”

He threw his yoyo into the air as it began to spin, glowing brighter and brighter until an object formed, landing right in his hands.

“What the… Are these glasses?”

Stoneheart roared inhumanly, pounding his fists into the ground and charging the two superheroes and Alya, only to miss at the last second.

“Mister Bug!” Kit called, “He’s like a bull! He can’t steer very well!”

“Good to know! Hey, Alya, are these your glasses?”

Kit made a move to run underneath Stoneheart and trip him with her staff, but as soon as she got close enough, his massive fist had her trapped.

“Urk! Uh, A little help!” 

Mister Bug's plan was simple. During their fight, he had noticed that Stoneheart never opened his right fist. His plan was for himself and Kit to both get captured, one in each hand, and hopefully, Stoneheart would drop the butterfly, or whatever Tikki said.

“Hey! Stoneheart!” He yelled, whipping his yoyo towards the villain, and to his delight, the weapon was firmly clasped in Stoneheart's hand, and soon enough, so was Mister Bug. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a small purple object rolling across the broken field.

“Nice going.” Kit hissed, “What the hell was that?”

“Alya! Now!”

The recording girl quickly ran over and stomped on the purple lump, cracking it open and sending a purple butterfly into the sky.

“I stand corrected,” Kit said as Mister Bug tossed his lucky charm into the air, sending swarms of ladybugs into the air, which magically repaired all of the damage.

“Hey, I’m gonna talk to… Ivan, you said his name was?” Kit whispered, “Okay?”

“Sure. I’ll deal with Alya.” He grinned, gesturing to the approaching reporter with a gleam in her eye.

Kit slinked back to the slumped form of Ivan, who held a piece of paper between his large hands.

“Hey.” She gently said, laying a hand on top of his own, “Are you okay?”

“It’s Kim… He’s always making fun of me.” Ivan growled, “I guess this letter just… pushed me over the edge.”

Kit curiously read the letter, “You haven’t got the guts to tell Mylène that you love her, Wuss. Oh, I’m sorry, Ivan. You know, maybe you’re not the best with words. I bet that she’d like a gift!”

“How did you know my name?”

She paused. Mister Bug knew his name, that’s where she heard it, but how did he know? “I-”

“Amazing, beautiful, spectacular!” Alya gushed, shoving her filming phone into Kit's face, “I have so many questions! Are you going to be sticking around? Where did you get your powers!? WERE YOU BITTEN BY A RADIOACTIVE CAT?!”

Mister Bug shrugged from behind Alya, mouthing, ‘I couldn’t stop her.’

“Yes, I don’t know, and no.” Kit quickly answered as her ring beeped loudly, “Hey, I’m very sorry, but I don’t have much time left, but if I ever see you again, I promise to answer more questions! Hey, Bugaboy! Pound it?”

She held up her gloved hand towards her partner, who eagerly accepted the fist bump.

Alya looked like she was going to explode, “EEEE! Holy hell, this is amazing! Please, one more time for the camera, tell us your names!”

Marinette’s ring beeped once more, leaving only two pads left.

“Kit Noire! Bye!” she shouted before quickly exiting the scene on her staff.

“I’m Mister Bug, but you already knew that.” He winked at the camera, “Bug out!”

**********

“That was AMAZING!” Marinette sighed as she flopped onto her bed, “I’ve never had so much fun in my life!”

Plagg tiredly landed beside her, gnawing on a cinnamon stick and sighing contently, “I know, kid. No better way to escape the troubles of daily life.”

“You know, I’m pretty sure that I read somewhere that cats couldn’t eat cinnamon.”

“Bite me. I like the spice.”

They sat in silence for a moment before Marinette sighed longingly again, “And Mister Bug, he was so sweet! I can’t wait to see him again!”

“Speaking of Mister Bug- urp!- Did you remind him to catch the butterfly?”

Marinette thought back. She remembered the butterfly floating into the air and everything fixing itself, but no memory of Mister Bug catching the butterfly was present. She groaned, “No, I don’t think so. Why? Is that bad?”

Plagg quickly gulped down the rest of his cinnamon stick and darted over to the television, bumping into the remote a few times to turn it on.

“ _-These victims transformed into stone beings are still like statues. The police are perplexed as to what will happen to them. Will they come back to life or be frozen in time forever?_ ” Nadja Chamack, the news anchor, spoke from the screen, sending chills down Marinette’s spine. She slowly turned to look at the tiny god, who nervously attempted to float away, “Oh... I knew I forgot something earlier...”

A low and inhuman growl grew in Marinette’s throat as she spoke, “Plagg… what did you not tell me?”

**********

“ _Paris is relying on our new guardian angels, Mister Bug and Kit Noire, to save us all. Our lives depend on them._ ”

Adrien stared at the television in horror as constant images of people transforming into miniature Stonehearts flashed across the screen.

“Tikki… I think I royally screwed up.” Adrien said as he ran a hand through his tousled hair, “Is there any way to fix this?”

Tikki, albeit munching on a cookie, sensed his unease and was quick to console him, “Oh, don’t worry, Adrien! This is normal! I've never had a holder be perfect right off the bat. It really is no problem!”

“Yeah, sure, but… This is insane. And it's definitely a problem.” He gestured to the screen, which showed another person turning into a stone monster.

“...Okay, yes, it's a problem. Adrien, you’re not considering giving up, are you?”

Adrien recalled the events from earlier, remembering almost every single detail, “I don’t know. I guess… Alya distracted me with her interview, and It just slipped my mind! I totally forgot to capture the butterfly!”

“Adrien, please, you don’t need to worry!” Tikki squeaked, “Everyone makes mistakes!”

“I know, I know! But not everyone makes a mistake that turns most of Paris into STONE MONSTERS!”

“Nobody is perfect! It just takes practice!”

Adrien took a few deep breaths, flopping onto his bed in an attempt to calm down, “Okay. Okay, I’m good. I just need to know how to fix this.”

Tikki sighed in relief. Last time this happened, the ladybug nearly gave up their miraculous, “All you need to do is capture the original Akuma. Unfortunately, that may mean that Ivan needs to turn back into Stoneheart.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who are curious, I imagine Kit Noire with the same costume as Maotif from Zoe-Oneesama’s Scarlet Lady AU on Tumblr.  
> I had this image in mind when trying to describe Kit's hair --> https://celisart.tumblr.com/image/620193087664406528  
> Also, I made Plagg like cinnamon because I refuse to make Marinette smell like cheese. Will that be important? I have no idea.  
> Glasses Adrien gives me life.  
> Anyway, I hope you liked it, and if not I don’t blame you because I wrote this in one day and the free version of Grammarly s my beta.


	2. Origins: Stoneheart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote the entire first chapter and most of this one in one day. It took me two days to write the last four pages in docs. I'm pretty sick of Origins at this point

“Oh, this is too easy!” Marinette giggled, using her staff to reach over the wall that surrounded her house before landing behind a trash bin and detransforming, leaving her in a pair of dark fleece-lined leggings and an oversized black hoodie with a blue paw print on the chest that she had, in her superhero-induced high yesterday, stitched together, “Plagg, I don’t know if I’ve said this before, but you’re the best.”

She gently slid the Kwami into her school bag, where several cinnamon sticks awaited his hungry mouth, “You could stand to say it more. I still don’t get why you want to go to school. Do you have any idea how many Chat Noirs in the past have complained about it relentlessly?”

Marinette scanned her surroundings to make sure nobody had seen her before taking off in a determined sprint, “I told you, Plagg, I can’t deal with being stuck at home any longer. It was bearable before, but after fighting Stoneheart, oh my god! I was free for the first time in AGES! There’s no way I’m staying at home for something as normal as school!”

Plagg rolled his large green eyes sarcastically, but deep down, he was happy that Marinette was so ecstatic. He’d only known her for a day, but she was unique, and she deserved this freedom. She took a sharp turn into the Place des Vosges and nearly slipped on a puddle. If she remembered correctly, the school was just past the bakery at the other end of the park. 

_Grrrrr_

Oh, right. She forgot to eat breakfast this morning.

“Kid, you sound like a bear. Eat something.” Plagg said.

“I probably should. I have my wallet, right?”

Plagg lifted a small leather case out of the bag for her to see.

“Good. I might stop in this bakery up here and grab something. Do you want anything?”

“No.”

Marinette skidded to a stop in front of the glass door. The sign read _Tom and Emilie Boulangerie Patisserie_. As soon as she opened the door, she immediately began drowning in a wave of the smell of freshly baked bread and cakes.

“Kid, I changed my mind. Get me one of everything.” Plagg’s muffled voice tried to get her attention.

“Hello!” A massive man behind the counter exclaimed cheerfully, "Welcome to Tom and Emilie Boulangerie Patisserie! What can I get for you?”

Almost as if on cue, Marinette’s stomach growled again, causing her to blush in embarrassment.

“I’d just like something small. I don’t eat big meals anyway.” She mumbled.

“Does anything catch your eye?” He asked, gesturing to a rack that contained all sorts of bread and treats, and Marinette found herself agreeing with Plagg. One of everything sounded delightful.

“Just a croissant, please.”

The man shrugged and placed a croissant in a small bag, “It’s on the house.”

Marinette had to blink a few times, “Are you sure?”

“Yes, of course! You sound hungry, and I wouldn’t feel right making you pay for that.”

Marinette gingerly picked up the bag from the counter, “Thank you. I’ve never really… Thank you.”

The man shrugged, “It’s our pleasure. May I have your name? I’m Tom Dupain, by the way.”

Marinette sent a soft smile towards the towering man, “Marinette. Agreste. You wouldn’t happen to have the time, would you?”

Tom pointed to a television that showed the news. In the corner, it displayed the numbers 8h22

“Oh, geez, I need to go!” She squeaked, turning to sprint out the door, “Thank you so much!”

As soon as she shoved the door open, a car horn blared from just down the street, a horn that she recognized as her father’s car. She had to run.

“Marinette! Please, don’t do this! You know what your father wants!” Nathalie called through a window as it rolled down.

“What about what I want?!” Marinette seethed, “Just… Please, tell him you got here too late! Please, Nathalie!”

Marinette paused at the bottom of the stairs to pleadingly stare at her father’s assistant, who, after a few seconds of staring right back, relented.

“Whoa.” She laughed as the car disappeared down the street, “Did that just work?”

**********

“Presenting… drumroll, please.” Alya dramatically announced from just inside the school entrance as Adrien and Nino began quickly patting their legs, “Mister Blog, alternatively Kit Chat! Name patent pending. Bringing you all the latest news about the coolest superheroes, Mister Bug and Kit Noire! How awesome is that?! Check out the number of views since I posted the video!”

Adrien had already seen the video. Hell, he _lived_ it, but Alya couldn’t know that, so he pretended to be surprised, “Whoa, nice!”

“Cool! How were you able to get such close footage of the fight?” Nino asked.

“Honestly, I have no idea. If Kit Noire hadn’t been there, I would have totally been crushed by a soccer goal! It was so cool!”

Despite Alya’s elated tone, Adrien nearly fell out of his seat. He, one of the heroes, nearly let one of his best friends die.

“Alya…" he said slowly, "Why are you trusting of them? You said it yourself, you almost died.”

“Ah, yes, the keyword being _almost_. Besides, everyone makes mistakes. It’s not like they won't be able to fix what’s happening now.”

“But-”

Alya groaned loudly in an undeniable attempt to interrupt him, “Listen, blondie, I get that this is scary, and you’re probably nervous, but don’t be! I was there. I saw them with my own two eyes, and I know that they'll protect us. Seriously, don’t worry.”

“Alya-”

“Sorry!” An unfamiliar girl with a midnight black braid and bluebell eyes yelped as she shoved through the doors, “I’m not late, am I?”

“Whoa, girl, calm down!” Alya jumped in front of the panicking girl, “What’s up?”

“Am I late? Please say no!” She heaved a breath in, “I-I don’t want to be late on my first day!”

“Girl, first day? Yesterday was the first day of school.”

The ravenette took a deep breath, “Yes, I know, I… my father wouldn’t let me come yesterday. I kind of ran away?”

A wide grin grew on Nino’s face, “Dude, you ran away and came to school?”

The girl nervously chuckled and pushed a loose strand of her messy hair behind her ear, “I know it sounds weird. I just… Father is a bit overprotective. I’ve been homeschooled for the past nine years, and I just wanted a normal life for once. Be honest, is that too much to ask?”

“Girl, you call your dad ‘father’? Who does that? Oh, I’m Alya. That’s Adrien and Nino, by the way.”

The blonde boy and the DJ both waved.

The girl bit her lip, as if to prevent hateful words from escaping them, “I, uh… like I said, Father is extremely stern. He doesn’t want me tarnishing his company name, so he insists that I call him Father. ‘Dad’ is too unprofessional.”

Alya drew back from the unfamiliar girl and began whispering to her friends, before soon returning to her side, a wide grin on her face, “You wouldn’t happen to be Marinette Agreste, would you? The model, designer, daughter of Gabriel Agreste!?”

**********

Marinette’s heart nearly exploded at the accusation, “H-how did you know?”

Alya raised her phone to Marinette’s face, revealing a picture of the dark-haired girl posing to show off a floppy hat that her father had designed for his most recent collection, “I follow Gabriel brand on Instagram, and this is most definitely you.”

Red exploded across her cheeks, “Alya-”

“Besides, the only thing Chloé talked about yesterday was her best friend Marinette coming here.”

Ice filled Marinette’s veins as she tried to cover her distaste, “She’s here?”

The fear still managed to slip through, and Alya immediately burst out laughing, “Oh my god, you hate her too? She told us that you were, and I quote, ‘the most talented, most beautiful, and most _my best friend_ in the world.’”

Marinette internally cringed at that thought, “I wouldn’t say that I’m the most talented or most beautiful person in the world, but… uh... technically, she _is_ my best friend.”

Alya froze, her voice as cold as ice, “What?”

“Haha… yeah. Father never let me leave the house other than to meet with other important people or to have photos taken. I only regularly see my father, my father’s assistant, and my bodyguard.”

For a moment, Marinette thought that Alya was going to melt in relief, “Oh, you meant like… she’s your _only friend_. I pity you.”

It was Marinette’s turn to turn into jelly. This was great, her first real conversation with another human her age other than Chloé! It was incredible!

“You know what, it’s time for you to get some new friends.” Alya draped her arm over Marinette’s tiny frame, “Super digging the Kit Noire getup, by the way. She saved my life yesterday, you know.”

Marinette hesitated. Human contact that wasn’t Chloé being obnoxious was foreign, and it smelled a lot nicer than her disgusting perfume.

“Oh, y-yeah? She asked, feigning shock, “How did that happen?”

“Oh, I love telling this story! You see, it went like this…”

**********

Marinette didn’t bother paying attention to Alya’s story. She was the one who saved her, after all, but by the time it was over, Marinette and Alya had already taken their seats in the classroom, Nino and Adrien right behind them.

“And that’s how it happened.” Alya finished her long-winded story, “Pretty cool, right?”

“Yeah.” Marinette’s thought drifted to Mister Bug, her partner, “I’d love to be saved by a superhero.”

“Oooh! Scoop! Do you have a crush on one of the new superheroes? Is that why you’re wearing Kit Noire merch?!”

Marinette was immediately sent into a blushing mess at the accusation, “W-what?! No! I mean... sure, Mister Bug is nice to look at, but it’s not like I’m in love with him!”

Alya narrowed her eyes at her new friend, as if analyzing her for the truth before shrugging, “I mean, you’re valid. Mister Bug was pretty cute. And if I had to pick a girl, Kit Noire would be her.”

Unbeknownst to them, Adrien was uncontrollably flushing behind them. (Dude, what’s up? Are you dying?)

“Okay, class! Everyone settle down!” the teacher said as she strode into the classroom, “Agreste, Marinette?”

An odd silence filled the room as Marinette desperately searched for assistance.

“You just say ‘present,’ girl dude.” Nino helpfully whispered.

“Oh!" She yelped, quickly standing up as she shouted, "Uh, present!”

It came out much louder than she wanted, garnering a low wave of laughter from the entire class.

“Bourgeois, Chloé?”

No response.

“Absent… Bruel, Ivan?”

Suddenly the ground began thudding, quickly growing louder and louder until a stone creature punched through the wooden door and screamed, “PRESENT!”

And to absolutely no one’s surprise, Chloé was in one of his hands.

“You can all thank this little monster for my return.” He growled, shaking the blonde girl around as he scooped up Mylène from her seat, “Now you and I can be together forever!”

And as quickly as he had arrived, he was gone, leaving a trashed classroom and a massive hole in the wall in his place.

“Dude…” Nino gasped as he watched Stoneheart stomp down the road, “Uncool.”

“Come on, guys! Let’s see if we can catch Mister Bug and Kit Noire in action again! Maybe you can meet them this time!” Alya urged her friends to follow her out of the classroom, but upon inspection, she found that Marinette and Adrien had disappeared, and Nino was crouched under his desk.

“I’m good, dudette.” He chuckled, “Watching videos is good enough for me.”

**********

“Plagg, I’m beginning to think that public schooling is cursed,” Marinette said as the Kwami floated out of her bag.

“I’ve been telling you. It’s just a pain. Besides, a day off? Yes? No? Leaning towards yes?”

She chuckled and scratched the tiny god under his chin, eliciting a purr, “Nice try, but we’ve still got work to do. Besides, if I can’t even make it past roll call, I might as well do something I’m good at! Claws out!”

**********

“Tikki, are you sure-”

“Adrien, just try to stay calm. Everything will be fine.”

“Really? Because it kind of looks not fine.”

“Just say spots on already.”

“Spots on!”

**********

The heroes quickly discovered that this was going to be significantly more challenging than the first time when Kit Noire was immediately launched across two streets by a car used as a bat.

“Meouch.” She mumbled as Mister Bug dragged her to her feet, “that was unpleasant.”

“No kidding.” Mister Bug paused to laugh at his upcoming joke, “Homerun?”

Kit was not impressed.

Mister Bug coughed awkwardly, “Ahem… yeah… did you see where Ivan went?”

“You need to work on comedic timing, Bugaboy.” She sighed, “I think he was heading towards the Eiffel Tower last time I saw him.

Sure enough, after a few swings and vaults, Kit and Mister Bug found themselves in front of a police blockade at the base of the Trocadéro, where the Mayor was screaming through a megaphone, clearly something about his captured daughter.

“I demand that you return my daughter safely!” His grating voice howled through the megaphone.

“Hah! What a terrible mayor! Only demanding a safe return for his daughter when there are two hostages!” Stoneheart mocked, “You can have her back!”

Stoneheart suddenly threw Chloé with all his might towards the Pont d’léna. For a small moment, Mister Bug considered letting her hit the ground but decided against it because he didn’t want to see someone explode on concrete, regardless of how much of a shit person they were.

Also, the mayor’s terrified screech was annoying.

Thankfully, Kit Noire didn’t have that moment of hesitation, as she began sprinting forward before she had even left Stoneheart’s hand. At the very last moment, she dove and grabbed the mayor’s daughter out of the air, gently releasing the sobbing girl back to her father.

“We’re clear to attack!” Officer Raincomprix shouted from atop his police cruiser, “Fi-”

“Hold on!” Mister Bug snapped, “You know just as well as we do that he’ll only get bigger with each attack!”

The policeman scoffed at them, “At least we’re doing something. If you had taken care of this the first time, we wouldn’t even be here, so why don’t you two pack up and head home?”

Mister Bug froze and took a deep breath, his entire figure drooping. It pissed Kit off.

“Excuse me?” she quite literally hissed, hopping on top of the car with him, her pupils narrowing to slits, “It was our first day! Of course we messed something up! Besides, do you even know how to change him back to normal?!”

“Kit… he’s right.” Mister Bug shakily said as she returned to his side, signaling the cop that she was watching him, “I forgot to do the one thing that my Kwami told me specifically to do and made the situation that much worse.”

Kit placed a hand on his padded shoulder and squeezed it comfortingly, “Hey, don’t listen to him. If you’re anything like me, you were thrown into this without preparation. It just takes time. Don’t worry. We’ll be fine.”

When Mister bug didn’t respond, Kit immediately thought she’d said the wrong thing and almost panicked, but it quickly faded when he wrapped her into a hug.

“Thank you, chatonne.” He whispered into her hair, producing a bright red blush on the heroine’s face.

“No problem!” She squeaked, “We’re partners, aren’t we?”

A loud cough interrupted their moment, drawing their attention to the Eiffel tower, where Stoneheart was seemingly choking violently. Moments later, he let out a pained roar and collapsed backward, vomiting a cloud of purple butterflies that formed into the shape of a man’s face.

“ _People of Paris!_ ” The head boomed in a gravelly voice, “ _I am Hawk Moth._ ”

“Hawk Moth?” The two heroes asked synchronously.

“ _Mister Bug and Kit Noire, hand over your miraculous to me so someone more responsible may care for them. You two children have done enough damage to these innocent people._ ”

Kit almost laughed out loud, “Is this guy for real?” She asked her partner, but Mister Bug was no longer by her side. Instead, he was strolling forwards and clapping sarcastically.

“Nice try, Hawk Moth, but I think we all know that this is your doing. Sure, I messed up and made it worse, but if you hadn’t created Stoneheart to begin with, none of this would be happening. No matter how long it takes, we will find you, and you will hand over YOUR miraculous!”

He finished his short speech by swinging into the air with his yoyo and capturing all of the butterflies that formed Hawk Moth’s face in a series of swipes, heroically catching the last one as he landed above the fallen Stoneheart.

“Let me make this promise to you all! No matter the challenge, no matter the risk, Kit Noire and I will do everything in our power to keep you all safe!” He announced, punctuating it by tapping his yoyo and raising it above his head. A storm of purified butterflies exploded from the weapon and filled the sky above him, and cheering erupted from every direction.

Though she was too far away for Mister Bug to see, Kit Noire was giggling quietly with a smitten look on her face. Also unseen was Stoneheart regaining consciousness.

*****

“YOU’LL NEVER HAVE MYLÈNE!” Stoneheart screamed as he climbed higher on the tower, “COME TO ME, MY ARMY!”

“Oh boy,” Kit said as she leaned over the edge of the tower, seeing an army of stone monsters charging towards them, “Lucky Charm time?”

Mister Bug shrugged, “Why not? Lucky Charm!”

A spotted backpack fell into his hands.

“A parachute?” He wondered aloud.

“Maybe it’s telling us to go higher. You know, where Stoneheart went?” Kit pointed upwards as the monster roared, shaking the tower to its core.

Mister Bug nodded and slipped the pack over his shoulder, “Yeah. Good plan.”

As they raced Stoneheart to the top, Mylène’s voice was clear, screaming about a fear of heights.

“So we know where the Akuma is,” Mister Bug said as he landed, “But how do we get to it? We can’t attack him, and he’s got a hostage this time.”

Kit let a wild grin take over her face as Stoneheart pulled himself onto their level, “I have a stupid idea. Cataclysm!”

“You’ll never take Mylène away from me!” Stoneheart thundered.

“Sorry, Ivan,” Kit said, lunging forwards and slicing her empowered claws across the railing that Stoneheart was hanging on, “But I think we will.”

Stoneheart moved to grab another solid object as the one he was holding on to rusted through, but he wasn’t fast enough. As his left hand was suddenly holding nothing but rust and dust, he reached to grab another solid object with his right hand, dropping Mylène, who grasped the akumatized object tightly in her hands.

“I’ve got her!” Kit yelled as she dove over the edge, grabbing the small girl’s wrist and pulling her in before extending her staff to the ground below and slowing their descent. As they landed softly, Kit pointed a clawed finger to the purple blob in Mylène’s hand, “May I?”

Mylène nodded eagerly and shoved the ball into the hero’s waiting hands, who immediately threw it down and stomped on it as hard as she could, shattering it into pieces and releasing the infected butterfly. 

“All yours, Mister Bug!” Kit shouted to the top of the tower where Stoneheart crumbled and faded into purple mist, leaving a perplexed looking Ivan in his place. Mister Bug quickly darted outwards and grabbed one of Ivan’s flailing arms while simultaneously tugging the parachute cord, safely carrying the two boys to the ground.

“Miraculous Mister Bug!” He said, tossing the parachute pack into the sky. An explosion of ladybugs followed, swarming anything damaged during the attack and repairing it.

“I told you everything would be fine.” Kit said as Mister Bug and Ivan landed softly.

“You sure did.” He said as he tapped his yoyo, releasing the purified Akuma, “Bye-bye, little butterfly!”

Kit nearly choked on her saliva as a sudden fit of laughter hit her, “Did you just say… bye-bye, little butterfly?”

He nodded, giving a tiny wave to the insect as well, “Yeah, why?”

“Pff- Hahahaha! I’m sorry, but that was _adorable._ ”

Mister Bug’s cheeks flushed in embarrassment, “Y-yeah? So what?”

Kit grinned and leaned on the tips of her toes, booping the insect-themed hero on the nose affectionately, “Well, Bugaboy, that’s supposed to be my job. The cunning, funny, undeniably heroic, super cute, and ultra-charming Kit Noire!”

Mister Bug sighed and rolled his eyes, though a smile tugged at his lips, “I guess I have a lot to live up to.”

Kit shrugged and picked up the repaired piece of paper that formerly contained the Akuma. After reading through it quickly, she could tell that it was meant to be a poem or song of some sort.

“Hey, your name is Mylène, right? She asked the shaking girl beside her, who nodded.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I think you should read this.” Kit softly said, placing the lyrics into Mylène’s waiting hands. She read over it slowly, eyes growing wider and face turning redder with each word.

“Ivan, this is wonderful!” She exclaimed.

“It was scary when I sang earlier, wasn’t it?” Ivan dejectedly said, “I’ll be more gentle, I promise!”

Mylène wrapped him into a hug, sending the larger boy into a giddy stupor.

“Oh, catch me, ma Cherie, I swoon!” Kit cried out, “The cuteness, it’s too much!”

Mister Bug barely kept her from slamming into the ground, “You’re crazy, Kitkat, you know that?”

“Ooh, coming back at me with the nicknames? Fair enough, Sunshine.”

An urgent beep from Mister Bug’s earrings quickly quieted her laughter, though the smile remained on her face, “That’s your cue, Bugaboy.”

“It appears that way, doesn’t it?” He said, beginning to spin his yoyo, “See you soon, My lady!”

As he swung off into the maze of buildings in the distance, Kit sighed fondly.

“He called me his lady…”

**********

“And by the time I got there, it was all over!” Alya cried as they walked into school the next day, “I’m so bummed out!”

“Hey, don’t worry Al,” Nino tried to comfort her, “Whatever you saw, I’m sure it was more exciting than sitting in a classroom.”

“Yeah. You’ll get your scoop eventually!” Adrien chimed in.

Alya thoughtfully scratched her chin, “Yeah, you know what? You’re right! Next stop, exclusive interview with the heroes!”

Behind them, a shiny silver car pulled up to the curb.

“ _You have deliberately disobeyed me twice. Take a look at that school._ ” Marinette’s father spoke through a tablet.

Her head drooped, not wanting to have to see it one final time, “Father-”

“ _You will never, I say, never return here…_ ”

“Father please-”

“ _Without your bodyguard._ ”

Wait. What?

“ _He will drop you off and pick you up every day. I do not wish for you to feel the need to run away from home just to go to school. Nathalie has offered to reorganize your schedule, as you will continue with your violin, Chinese, and self-defense classes. I have asked that she prioritize your self-defense classes with the emergence of these ‘supervillains.’ I only want the best for you._ ”

“Thank you!” She exclaimed excitedly, throwing the door open and hopping out, “Thank you! I love you, Father!”

And with that, she closed the door and ran to meet her new friends.

**********

Adrien loved the rain. It made the indoors feel cozy and safe, and it was usually his favorite type of weather.

But at the moment, he was trapped just outside of the school’s entrance as rain poured down relentlessly just ahead of him. Sure, he lived just across the street, but there was no way he could get there without getting soaked to the bone.

“Adrien!”

He was pulled out of his musings as Marinette walked up beside him, a dark blue umbrella held over her head, “Hm? Oh, hey!”

And with that, it was silent once more.

“Adrien, I know we haven’t spoken much, but we’re friends, right?”

Adrien thought back. He had only met Marinette yesterday, but during that time, he couldn’t recall a single conversation between the two. He wasn’t even sure if he had introduced himself. Alya had done it.

“I don’t think I ever formally introduced myself,” Adrien bowed slightly, “My name is Adrien Dupain.” He delicately lifted one of her hands to his lips and kissed it, “Enchanté.”

_He and Plagg would get along_ , she thought, smiling, “Enchanté. You wouldn’t happen to be related to the owners of the bakery across the street, would you?” She inquired, “I stopped there yesterday to get breakfast. They were very nice.”

“Why, yes, I am.” He confirmed, “Though I don’t think I’ll be getting home for a while. I don’t exactly enjoy walking in wet socks.”

Marinette hummed, leaning forward to see just how far the bakery was. For a moment, Adrien thought she was going to run there herself, but instead, she held out her umbrella over his head.

“You need it more than I do.” She said upon seeing his confused face, “I’m just waiting for my bodyguard to get here.”

Adrien couldn’t help but chuckle at the sentence, “That’s such a rich person thing to say.” only to freeze and cover his mouth after. What if that was offensive to her?

To his surprise, she laughed right back, “I know, right? Wanna hear something funny? I call him ‘The Gorilla’.”

“What? Why?”

“He’s enormous!” To emphasize her point, Marinette stretched her arms as far as they would go, “He also doesn’t talk very much, but he’s a gentle giant. Y’know, unless he deems you as a threat, then it gets kind of ugly.”

“I hope I'm not threatening if that’s the case.”

Marinette pursed her lips to stop a chuckle from escaping, “Adrien, you’re about as threatening as a kitten. I don’t think you need to worry.”

“Hey!” He exclaimed, puffing his chest out, “I can be threatening!”

“Sure, you can. Just don’t be _too_ sinister, kitty.”

A loud honk interrupted their laughter, signaling that Marinette’s bodyguard had arrived.

“That’s him. I’ll see you tomorrow?” She asked, hopefully.

“Yeah, d-definitely!” Adrien stammered. _Whoa, what was that? Did I just stutter?_ “L-let me w-w-walk you to your c-car!”

The dark-haired girl playfully batted at his hand as he moved the umbrella back over her head, “How chivalrous!”

Adrien felt a blush creeping into his cheeks, “I just don’t want you to get rained on!”

“I gave you the umbrella so you wouldn’t get rained on. This kind of defeats the purpose.”

“O-oh yeah…”

Marinette scrunched her eyebrows, staring up at the taller boy before grabbing his free hand and dragging him under the safety of the umbrella as well, much closer than he expected.

“What are you-”

“Problem solved!” She said, “Now we’ll both be dry!”

The short walk to the waiting car felt like an eternity for Adrien, both because he was desperately trying to hide his ever-increasingly red face, and because part of him never wanted it to end.

“See you tomorrow,” Marinette said as she slid into the car, sending a small wave to the blonde boy.

“Yep! See you motorrow!”

By the time the car had disappeared around a corner, Adrien was still standing on the curb, stunned.

“What just happened to me?” He asked aloud.

Tikki zipped up to his face and tapped his cheeks, though the heat was fading, “I think you might know, Adrien.”

Unseen by Adrien, an older man stood at another crosswalk under his own umbrella, smiling at the scene.

A green kwami floated by his face, “Excellent choice, master.”

“I agree.” the older man said, “Those two are made for each other!”


	3. Stormy Weather

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kind of feel like I made Alya an asshole in this one, that was not my intention so if that's how you see her please don't expect that to continue.

Marinette _despised_ photoshoots.

Every once in a while, her father would have someone drag her out to some random place with a good background, the Trocadéro, Le Tour Montparnasse, The Seine, _whatever_ , and have her picture taken more times than she could count. Regardless of the location, it was always incredibly dull, and ever since Marinette had become Kit Noire, sitting still became significantly more challenging.

“Magnifico! Super! Come on now, I want to see hunger in your eyes!”

Also, her photographer, Vincent, is kind of crazy. Today, the Gorilla took her to the Place des Vosges, a park near her school, and for the past thirty minutes, she had been posing on the edge of a fountain while Vincent extravagantly snapped hundreds of photos.

And the worst part? Her friend Adrien lived in the bakery that was right across the street, and she was stuck here.

_Mmm_ , she thought, _I could go for some macaroons right about now._

“Bravo! That's it! Give me the smile when your mom brings in spaghetti! Okay! And now, Oh no! Mama dropped the spaghetti! And now, you have to eat the spaghetti off the floor! Oh, yes, you're angry! Show me angry, yes, yes, yes!”

What the _hell_.

She was getting tired and could feel a yawn coming on. _Oh no, don’t yawn, I’ll kill you if you yawn, me_. Vincent hated it when she yawned.

She yawned, and the anger was immediately present on Vincent’s face.

_DAMN IT! I TOLD YOU NOT TO YAWN!_

**********

“ _Girl, you better check your texts!_ ”

Adrien groaned at the sound of Alya’s text tone and tried to suffocate himself back to sleep with his pillow. Last night, there had been a particularly long-winded Akuma that was angry about always getting cut off in conversations. Against his better judgment, Adrien refused to call Kit because he didn’t want to wake her up at 2 in the morning to fight. It was a mistake that he would never make again.

“Adrien, Alya is texting you.” Tikki helpfully said from somewhere to his right.

“I know.” He groaned, “Let me sleep.”

“ _Girl, you better check your texts!_ ”

“Adrien, she texted again.”

The blonde boy had to hold back a scream as he sat up and tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes, “Tikki, you’re so lucky.”

“Why is that?” The red Kwami asked as he made his way down the bed’s ladder.

“You can recharge your energy from just eating.” He said, grabbing his glasses and sliding them onto his face as his phone began ringing.

“ _You’d better pick up the phone, dumbass._ ”

Adrien wanted to throw his phone out the window and go back to sleep forever, but picked it up and answered anyway.

“What do you want, Alya?” he groaned.

“ _Adrien?" the reporter's voice clearly came through, "Nino and I are downstairs. I’ve been texting you for like five minutes._ ”

“Why are you here?”

“ _You sound pissed._ ”

“You woke me up.”

“ _Dude!_ ” Nino said from the background of the call, “ _It’s two in the afternoon!_ ”

Adrien sighed and looked at his idle computer monitor. Sure enough, the clock displayed 14h03.

“So it is…” He muttered, “Can I at least take a shower before I come down?”

“ _No._ ” Alya quickly said, “ _You may not._ ”

“Why did I ask you… Nino, can I take a shower before I come down?”

“ _Sure thing, bro!_ ”

One Nino-approved shower later, Adrien finally made his way down to the bakery.

“Dude, you look like death!” Nino exclaimed as he appeared, “Who kicked you in the face last night?”

“I just had a hard time sleeping,” He mumbled, recalling the Akuma’s foot colliding with his forehead, “Why are you here?”

“Aww, did we wake you up from your beauty sleep?” Alya said, “We’re here because it’s Saturday. We planned to meet up like three days ago.”

“Oh… right.”

“Dude, did you seriously forget?” Nino asked, “If you need to sleep, we can go on our own.”

A mischievous grin grew on Alya’s face, vaguely reminding Adrien of the Grinch for a moment.

“Yeah, Adrien,” she said, “We can go meet up with _Marinette_ all on our own.”

Ever since the whole ‘umbrella thing’ as he liked to call it, Adrien had found it harder and harder to get the ravenette out of his mind, and every time she popped into his head, his face would get redder than his hero costume. Alya called him out on it after she caught him staring at the back of her head, blushing like a fool in the middle of class, and she confirmed what he already knew.

He was absolutely, undeniably in love with Marinette.

She was so lovely and caring, level headed, eager, and upbeat, and she always put others' needs before her own. It also didn’t hurt that she was unquestionably adorable, with her dark hair and deep blue eyes that Adrien had gotten lost in so many times. She was also kind of shy and softspoken, which only added another level of cute to her beauty.

In short, Adrien thought she was perfect.

And Alya was most definitely using her to convince Adrien to come with them.

“You think you can-” He paused to yawn, “stop me from going out because I need sleep? I have a horrible sleep schedule anyway. This is nothing!”

Alya raised her chin in triumph, “That’s what I thought. Come on. She’s in the park next door.”

**********

_Finally_ , Marinette thought as she sat on a bench shaded by a tree with her sketchbook, _A break. Maybe I should yawn more._

As she began sketching the fountain she had been posing on, her phone buzzed.

_hey girl! i hope you remember our plan to hang out. we’ll stop by once we pick up adrien. UwU_ -Alya

Marinette smiled down at the screen, sending back a message.

_I told you my father didn’t approve of that. You’ll have to go without me._ -Marinette

 _yeah i remember. we’ll still come by the park and hang out with you for a while before we go. <3_ -Alya

 _girl, you need to tell your dad to let you do your own things! If he doesn’t, just lie or run away!_ -Alya

 _I’m working on getting him to let me out more. It shouldn’t be too hard, considering that I can threaten to escape through a second-story window and actually follow through with it if he says no._ -Marinette

 _oooo, rebellion! you go, girl!_ -Alya

 _Thanks. Where are you right now?_ -Marinette

_nino and i are at the bakery waiting for adrien_ -Alya

_he’s either ignoring our texts or asleep, and i know for a fact that it’s the latter. he learned his lesson the first time. >:)_ -Alya

_What happened the first time?_ -Marinette

_i set his phone so that every time i text him it plays a threatening recording of me saying ‘girl, you better check your texts!’_ -Alya

Marinette laughed at the thought.

_I didn’t know you could set individual tones for different people. Even then, can’t he just change it to something else?_ -Marinette

_i threatened to never let him see nino again if he changed it without my permission._ -Alya

_Can you do that?_ -Marinette

_i wouldn’t, but i could and adrien knows that._ -Alya

_here he comes. we’ll be there in a few minutes._ -Alya

Marinette slipped her phone back into her pocket and continued her sketch. The park was filled with posters of a girl that Marinette vaguely recognized from a different class at school. According to Alya, the KIDZ+ weather girl competition was a big deal.

“Hey, kid. I’m bored.” the sudden voice of Plagg said as he hovered over to Marinette.

“Me too.” She sighed, “Is it bad that I want to transform so I can go have fun?”

Plagg shrugged, landing on her shoulder like a tiny angel, or in his case, a devil, “It depends on who you ask. If you were a ladybug instead of a black cat, Tikki would most definitely tell you that ‘Ooh, I’m the Kwami of creation, I’m more mature than you, Plagg! Using your powers for personal gain is not what a superhero would do!’ to which I say, ‘Ooh, I’m the Kwami of destruction, and I couldn’t care less.’ Kid, if you ever need to get away, I’m here for you. You know the words.”

Marinette smiled and scratched his waiting head, “I bet you say that to all of the black cats.”

“Kid, if I were Tikki, that might be true, but if I get sent to someone who I don’t like, I let them know.”

“You’re great, Plagg.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know.”

True to Alya’s words, a few minutes later, Marinette heard the signature call of the reporter.

“GIRL!”

“Hide, Plagg!”

The cat-god quickly zipped back to her bag as Marinette’s friends approached.

“What’s up, girl? Having fun?” Alya asked, sliding onto the bench beside her.

Marinette smiled at the blogger, “Not quite. I’m on break at the moment. Vincent still wants a few more pictures taken.”

“BREAK IS OVER!”

Marinette cringed at the excitable photographer as she stood and began making her way back to the fountain, “...Yeah. Give me a few minutes.”

**********

As Marinette made her way back to the fountain and struck a pose, Adrien found himself staring at her again. Her neat braid, albeit unlike the signature disheveled version that she wore to school, flowed over her shoulder like a waterfall. Her bluebell eyes were like a deep lake. Her smile, though it may be a staged one, was of the most beautiful smiles he had ever seen.

“She’s pretty cute, right?” Alya jokingly asked as he sighed, leaning on one of his hands.

“Beautiful…” He muttered, before abruptly shooting up straight when he realized what he said, “W-wait, no! I-”

“Dude, calm down.” Nino tried to console the blonde boy, “What are you freaking out about?”

Alya laughed loudly, drawing the attention of both Marinette and the photographer to them. The photographer looked angry.

“Sorry!” She called before returning her focus to Adrien, “He’s freaking out because he’s totally in love with Marinette.”

“Hey!” Adrien squeaked, “N-no I’m not!”

“Dude, it’s kind of obvious.” Nino said, “You think I didn’t notice you staring at the back of her head that one time in class?”

_Does everyone know about that?_ He thought, “Look, I just…”

“Adrien,” Alya thankfully decided that she’d had enough fun, “We’re just messing with you. Marinette’s a great girl, and you’re a great guy. If you two got together, you’d be… double great? I don’t know. You’re not just into her because she’s famous though, right?”

Adrien almost regretted not telling her about the umbrella thing, “No, of course not! What kind of person do you take me for?”

Alya nodded approvingly before shoving a finger in his face, nearly knocking his glasses off, “Good. Don’t you dare hurt my girl. She’s my girl, you hear?!”

“I hear!” He raised his hands in surrender.

“And don’t… don’t be creepy about it.”

“...What counts as creepy?”

“You know, stalking, obsessiveness, writing fanfiction about you two doing stuff.”

“Jesus Christ, Alya! I ask again, what kind of person do you take me for?!”

“Marinette is a young and beautiful girl who just so happens to be a model for her father, the famous fashion designer. You can probably guess what that leads to. Don’t do it. It’s supremely weird. If you write fanfiction about you two having sex, I will find out, and I will beat your stupid face in. Got it?”

“Okay! I’ve got it!”

Alya nodded slowly, “You’d better. Now that that’s out of the way, what do you think about ship names? I think Adrienette is good, but Nino says Marien. Thoughts?”

“Oh my god, stop!” Adrien exasperatedly shouted, standing up and walking away, “You guys are the worst!”

As he walked, a dark blob appeared in his peripheral vision. A closer look revealed it to be a girl with a parasol, and her vaguely butterfly-shaped mask told him all he needed to know.

“Look out!” He yelled, turning to run back to his friends. All of a sudden, an icy cold blast of wind flooded the entire park, throwing Adrien and several other people around before it finally subsided.

“Whoa!” He gasped, standing to find the park almost entirely frozen over. He quickly ran and ducked into a nearby alleyway.

“Tikki, am I still asleep? Is this a dream?” He asked the red Kwami as she flew out of his jacket.

“This is real, Adrien.” She ensured, “Will you be able to fight?”

Adrien nodded, “Yeah. That woke me up. Spots on!”

**********

“Claws out!”

After the familiar blue energy finished transforming her, Kit quickly extended her staff and flew out from behind the car she chose as a hiding spot, back towards the Place des Vosges. Floating down one of the roads nearby was the Akuma, throwing cars left and right like toys.

“Hey! Elsa!” She shouted as she landed, “Ice weather we’re having, huh?”

“My name is Stormy Weather!” She screamed, “And the weather is about to get a whole lot worse!”

Stormy Weather pointed her parasol at Kit, firing a blast of wind so powerful that it threw her backward into a car, then another, and another.

“Owwww…” She groaned as the villain floated past, sticking her tongue out tauntingly.

“Whoa. Are you alright, M’lady?” her partner asked, dropping into the scene with his yoyo at the ready.

“I am now that you’re here!” She said, “That really hurt, though.”

“I can tell.” He hummed, helping her to her feet, “What did you say to her?”

Kit moaned as she bent backward and popped her aching back, “I just mentioned how nice the weather was. Didn’t think she’d take it so personally.”

Mister Bug turned to look at the Akuma, who paused to blast a television screen with lightning before continuing.

“Hey, that’s not very nice!” he called as he threw his yoyo, “Those are expensive!”

“Don’t you know that ladybugs hibernate during the winter?” Stormy weather said, dodging the weapon, “Black Ice!”

The tapped the ground with her parasol, and the streets immediately began to freeze over.

Kit wobbled for a moment before finally stabilizing herself, “At least she didn’t-”

“Wind Storm!”

“I spoke too soon.”

“Hold on!” Mister Bug shouted, wrapping his yoyo around a street light and grabbing for one of Kit’s arms as they began sliding.

“Ow! HEY! Let go!” She yelped as they were lifted into the air, “That’s my HAIR, jackass!”

After a few seconds, the wind faded and the heroes fell to the ground, groaning.

“I told you to let go.” Kit grumbled, face down on the pavement.

“Why?” Mister Bug asked, rolling onto his back and looking at his partner.

“I would have rather been blown away than have you holding me by my hair.”

He looked down to find the end of her lengthy braid firmly clasped in his hand.

“Oh… my bad.” he winced, dropping the braid, which proceeded to whack him in the face several times.

“It’s fine.” She huffed, “Did you see where the Akuma went?”

To her chagrin, he shrugged, “I was a little busy trying to keep you from flying away.”

“You could have grabbed my arm or something.”

“I tried! I’m sorry!”

Kit took in a deep breath to sigh, but halfway through, she began choking as a large snowflake entered her lungs.

“ACK!” She choked, “What the-”

_“Hello, viewers! Here's the latest forecast for the first day of summer. Looks like Mother Nature had a change of plans. Summer vacation is officially over!”_ Stormy Weather’s voice boomed from a nearby television screen, and in the bottom right corner was the KIDZ+ logo.

**********

A short trip later, the duo entered the front doors of the TVi studio. Every screen in the tower displayed Stormy Weather’s smug cackling as she predicted the weather by shrouding an image of Paris in an enormous snowflake.

“You know…” Mister Bug said as they entered a stairwell, “I think I might recognize her.”

“Do tell.”

Mister Bug lifted his yoyo and slid open the screen part, quickly typing a few things before showing her, “My friend told me about this competition that KIDZ+ was doing, a weather girl thing. I think it finished earlier today.”

On his yoyo was an image of two girls, one blonde with a parasol and one with black hair who shied away from the camera.

“The blonde one?” She asked, “She’s got a parasol, just like Stormy Weather.”

“Yeah. Aurore Beauréal. My guess is that she lost, and it got her akumatized.”

After a few more flights of stairs, they burst through the door into the studio, but to their surprise, nobody was there. Sitting in front of the camera was another screen displaying a frozen image of Stormy Weather.

“Fools!” Stormy’s harsh voice echoed through a speaker, “You fell right into my trap!”

Electricity crackled behind the speakers, and suddenly the entire studio was engulfed in darkness.

“I can’t see anything! Wha-whoa!” Mister Bug said, tripping over his own feet and falling to the floor.

Kit couldn’t help the laughter that followed as she watched him blindly fumbling around, “Do you need any help?”

“Ha-ha, very funny. Some of us don’t have night vision.”

“Perks of being a cat, hm?” She finally doused her laughter and moved to grab one of his open hands.

“Please don’t choose right now to get revenge for the hair thing.” He pleaded, “I’m really sorry about that! Please forgive me!”

Kit smiled warmly, though Mister Bug was unable to see it, “You know I could never stay mad at you. Just trust me. And don’t trip.”

She quickly grabbed one of his wrists and pulled him back into the stairwell, where a fire extinguisher immediately sailed in their direction.

“Whoa! What the hell, Stormy?!” Kit exclaimed as it slammed into the wall beside them, “Those are heavy!”

“I know! That’s why I threw it!” The Akuma screamed as she ran up the next flight of stairs and shoved through the door onto the roof.

“Oh, boy.” Kit muttered as they arrived on the top of the building, right in the middle of a massive tornado, “This is not ideal."

“Hailstorm!”

Large chunks of ice began falling from the sky, blowing around chaotically with the winds of the tornado. Kit attempted to block them by spinning her staff, though it proved to be futile as several pellets continued battering into them.

“Lucky charm time?” She flinched as a ball of ice the size of her fist slammed into Mister Bug’s stomach.

“OMIGOD!” He gasped, falling to his knees, “Luck- *wheeze* Lucky Charm!”

After a few seconds, a roll of red and black cloth fell into his hands.

“That’s a lot of cloth.” Kit said, jumping to dodge more hail, “Are you gonna stitch her a dress?”

“Not exactly.” He replied, “I need a distraction. Can you do that?”

“How big of a distraction?”

“How big can you go?”

“Bold of you to assume I have a limit. Cataclysm!”

Kit’s pupils narrowed as she ducked down onto all fours and darted across the rooftop, dodging bolts of lightning as she ran.

“You think you can stop me?!” Stormy screeched, “You may as well hand over your miraculous now!”

“Not a chance!” Kit called, sliding beneath one of the signs and destroying it supports, sending it falling directly onto Stormy Weather, who froze for a moment but blasted a hole in it to save herself.

“HA!” She laughed, “You think that will stop-”

“Gotcha!” Mister Bug jumped up from behind, wrapping his yoyo around a pipe and pulling the cloth around the Akuma’s face, blindfolding her, “Maybe a sign won’t but a superhero will!”

The villain began thrashing like an angered bull, nearly throwing Mister Bug off before Kit leaped up and pulled her hands back, immobilizing her so Mister Bug could pull them to the ground.

“No no NO NO NO!” Stormy Weather squealed as she was tied down, her parasol safely held in Mister Bug’s hands, “I deserved to win! Mireille can’t even look at the camera!”

“She’s kind of a brat, right?” Kit whispered as Mister Bug snapped the parasol over his knee and captured the Akuma. 

He shrugged as the girl transformed back, “I’ve seen worse.”

“That’s true.”

“We’re both talking about Chloé Bourgeois, right?”

“Yeah. Definitely.”

“Where am I?” Aurore asked confusedly as the two heroes fist-bumped. Mister Bug shuffled over to remove the makeshift blindfold and toss it into the air, activating the miraculous cure.

“Sorry about that. You were akumatized.” He apologized, helping her to her feet, “Are you okay?”

The girl nodded slowly, “I don’t know what happened. Thank you, Mister Bug.”

“No problem.” He smiled, causing the blonde girl to flush as she returned to the stairs and disappeared into the building.

“Looks like you’ve got an admirer.” Kit teased, her braid twisting itself around one of his legs as she leaned on his shoulder, “She’s cute, no?”

Mister Bug sighed, “Sure, objectively, but I prefer to focus on personality. What’s the point of falling in love with some beautiful person if they’re just gonna be a jerk?”

 _This boy is too pure for this world._ Kit thought, “That’s true. Must be nice, though, having a Mister Bug groupie.”

He shrugged, “Sure, I guess, but we’re superheroes. What do you expect?”

An urgent beep let Kit know that she had only three pads left on her ring.

“Nice work today, ma chérie.” She said, beginning to walk away, “See you next time!”

And with that, she disappeared over the edge of the building, hoping to return to the Place des Vosges before her bodyguard decided that someone had kidnapped her.

**********

As soon as Adrien detransformed, he sprinted as fast as he could back to the park, where his friends were most definitely waiting, probably making accusatory comments about how he abandoned them.

_“You’d better pick up the phone, dumbass.”_

There it was. He didn’t bother picking up the phone, seeing as he was already entering the park. Alya and Nino remained on the same bench they had been on before, though the girl’s foot was angrily tapping against the soil as she glared at her phone.

Nino noticed him first, dragging his own eyes away from Alya’s screen and waving to the blonde boy, “Dude! Where did you go?”

He slowed to a stop as he reached the bench, immediately regretting it as Alya stood up and jabbed his chest with her left index finger, “You’d better have a good explanation.”

“Listen, I know this is gonna sound crazy, but she froze me.” He lied, summoning a violent shiver to add to the image, “I tried to run and get help, and she caught me. I’m really sorry if I worried you!”

Nino had to hide his smile from the reporter at the excuse, “Dude, it’s totally fine. Alya thought you and Marinette ran off to make out.”

“Wait, she’s not here?” Adrien spun around, seeing no trace of the blue-eyed girl, “Where-”

Suddenly, Alya’s phone began buzzing, a recorded tune of what Adrien could identify as Marinette singing something, cutting herself off by shrieking and telling Alya to stop recording.

“Girl, where did you go?!” Alya practically screeched into the device as she answered, “You totally noped out on us!”

A few seconds of muffled words from Marinette and ‘yeahs’ from Alya later, she hung up and sighed, “Her bodyguard took her home as soon as this all started. That probably should have been obvious.”

“You have no faith in me.” Adrien scoffed, “You’re disgusting. You’re not my friends.”

“D-dude!” Nino choked, “I thought we were bros!”

Adrien furrowed his eyebrows and scratched his chin, “Hmm…”

“Adrien, you’re my bro! Don’t leave me bro-less!”

“Hmm… Okay. You’re cool. You’re my bro.”

“Bro.”

To their right, Alya groaned, though a smile was present on her face, “You two are incorrigible. Come on, let’s just go back to the bakery and hang out. I slipped earlier and hurt my ass something awful.”

As they crossed the street back to Adrien’s home, he couldn’t help but wonder, _Wait, what does incorrigible mean?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus: Kit's response to being asked "We're superheroes, what do you expect?" if her ring hadn't gone off
> 
> "Must be nice, though, having a Mister Bug groupie.”  
> “Sure, I guess, but we’re superheroes. What do you expect?”  
> "Honestly? Porn. Porn and fanfiction."  
> "K-kit! What the hell is wrong with you?!"  
> "You can't deny that these costumes don't exactly leave much to the imagination!"  
> "Yeah, but you didn't need to point it out!"


	4. The Bubbler

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this one took longer than the other ones. I got stuck for a few days after writing like a third of it. I hope you enjoy it!

“Bonne anniversaire, Marinette!”

“...Plagg, what are you doing in my bathroom?”

“Wishing you a happy birthday, what else?”

“Okay… but I’m taking a shower? Can you maybe wait for a few minutes?”

Truth be told, Marinette wasn’t a big fan of her birthdays. Her father had never allowed her to have a real birthday party with friends and celebration and general happiness. For as long as she could remember, the most she would receive from her father was a hollow ‘Bonne Anniversaire.” that was usually behind a screen, and then at some point, she would be gifted something stupid or useless. For the past three years, his gift to her had been a pen. The same _fucking_ pen for three years. In fact, she was almost positive that Nathalie had just grabbed a pen from her desk and used that because her father had forgotten and told her to get a gift at the last minute.

As the dark-haired girl exited her bathroom, Plagg returned to her side.

“Hey, kid…” Plagg said, following her to the large white couch, where she flicked on the television to wait for the Gorilla to come to get her, “You humans give each other presents on your birthdays, right?”

“Yeah.” The girl said flatly, “They’re supposed to. I shouldn’t complain, I guess, but how hard is it to at least say happy birthday in person?”

Plagg couldn't help but scowl at the gloomy tone she carried, “Hold out your hands.”

The girl complied as Plagg floated into the air, beginning to make a noise as if he were hacking up a hairball.

"Plagg?" she asked worriedly, "Are you okay? What-"

Suddenly, he spat a blindingly white sludge into Marinette’s hands.

“Plagg.” She said slowly, “Did you just spit in my hands?”

“Yes, I did.” He said matter-of-factly, “Give it a second.”

So she did, and to her delight, the liquid faded away, leaving behind what appeared to be some sort of bead. It was nearly pitch black, though it had some green and blue swirls, and took the shape of one half of the Yin Yang symbol.

“Oh!” She exclaimed, “It’s beautiful!

"You have no idea what it is, do you?"

"No idea."

“It’s a Kwagatama.” He said.

“...Okay? And what is that?”

Plagg groaned and flopped down onto the couch, “You ask a lot of questions, you know that? It’s a symbol of friendship. Bonne anniversaire, kid.”

The girl moved to hug the Kwami, but a sharp knocking at her door prompted the cat-god to dive into the girl’s hair to hide. Before she could call to invite the guest inside, Nathalie strode in with a tablet in hand.

“You schedule for today, Marinette.” She dully said, handing the tablet to Marinette and turning on her heels to walk away.

“Hey, Nathalie… did my father ever get back to you about having a birthday party?” She asked nervously, though she knew the answer before it was spoken.

“He doesn’t think it would be a good idea.” her father’s assistant said stoically.

Marinette scoffed and laid down flat on the couch, “Of course not. Why did I even bother?”

“For what it’s worth,” Nathalie said, an uncharacteristic softness now present in her voice, “Bonne anniversaire, Marinette.”

Once she was gone, Marinette lifted the Kwagatama back into her vision, imagining ways she could utilize the bead. A necklace, maybe?

**********

“Hey, girl dude!” Nino called as Marinette stepped out of her car, “Bonne anniversaire! Cool necklace, by the way.”

“Thanks, Nino.” She smiled, fingering her new jewelry bashfully, “Is it bad that you wished me happy birthday before my father?”

“Whoa, seriously?” He asked incredulously, blowing a few bubbles as he spoke, “M, your dad sucks. Did he even get you a gift?”

Marinette shrugged. Usually, she got her gift pretty late in the day, probably because her father had to be reminded so he could remind Nathalie to get her a gift, “I’ve gotten the same lame pen from him for three years now, so I’m just waiting for that.”

Nino looked like he’d been punched in the gut and slapped in the face simultaneously, “Mari, that’s horrible. Hold on. I got you something.”

“Oh, you don’t-”

“Nonsense. ‘Nette, you shouldn’t have to have a birthday and not get a decent gift.”

He rustled around in his satchel for a moment before pulling out a light pink beanie with a white M printed on the front and handed it to her.

He rubbed the back of his neck as the smaller girl took the gift, a shocked look plastered on her face, “I know it’s not much, but-”

“Nino, this is one of the best gifts that I’ve ever gotten.” She said softly, sliding the beanie onto her head with a grin, “I love it. Thank you.”

“It’s no sweat, girl dude.” Nino waved her off before pausing and pursing his lips, “You’re at least allowed to have a party, right?”

**********

By the time classes let out for lunch, Marinette was just about sick of Nino.

“That’s so messed up!” He griped for the millionth time as they walked down the stairs at the entrance of the school, “You have to have a party on your birthday! I’m pretty sure it’s a law!”

“It’s actually not-”

“Marinette, has your dad always been so lame? Surely at one point, he wanted to party and have fun, right?”

“I don’t think so, but-”

“Dude!”

Marinette let out an extended sigh as Plagg cackled in her backpack, “Nino, it’s really fine. This is already the best birthday that I’ve ever had!”

“But it’s just not complete without a party! Come on, girl dude, let me talk to your dad! Surely I can convince him to let you have a party!”

Marinette cringed at the thought. Nino was nice, but the way he dressed alone was enough to warrant his crucifixion in the eyes of Gabriel Agreste, “Nino, please, don’t waste your time. He won’t change his mind, let alone allow you into the house.”

Nino most definitely wanted to continue, but he relented with a sigh, “Okay. Even then, I have an idea for how you could get out of the house later if you’re up for it.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah! Lady Bro, your dad is all about perfection or improvement or whatever, right?”

“Ask my painfully repetitive piano practice.”

“Okay, so just tell him that you planned a study group or something!”

Marinette opened her mouth to protest it but found a lack of an answer. Nino noticed her silence and grinned widely, “It’s a good idea, right?”

At the bottom of the stairs, a limousine slowed to a stop and honked it’s horn loudly.

“Yeah. That might work.” Marinette mumbled as she began moving towards the vehicle, “Thanks for the hat, Nino!”

“It was my pleasure, Lady Bro!”

As the car disappeared around the corner, Nino pulled out his phone and sent a text to Adrien.

_Hey, dude, old man Agreste isn’t letting Marinette have a birthday party. If I don’t come back, tell people that I died doing the right thing._ -Bro

**********

Arriving at home for lunch had been no different than any other day.

Ride home in silence, enter the house in silence, eat her unsatisfying meal in silence, and return to her room to wait for her ride back to school _in silence._

Of course, hearing her father shouting at someone from the foyer was odd.

“Father?” She gently asked as she pushed through her door. To her surprise, her father was borderline shouting. Her father was usually aloof and stoic, so this outburst nearly sent her into a paralyzing shock.

“Listen, young man. I decide what's best for my daughter. In fact, I've just decided that you're a bad influence and you're not welcome in my house ever again. Leave now!”

The ravenette inhaled sharply and dashed over to the railing just in time to see Nino dejectedly shove through the front door.

“Father!” She accusingly shouted, sprinting past him and towards the exiting boy, “He was just trying to be a good friend!”

“Marinette-” He tried, but the girl was already out the front door.

“Nino! Wait!” She called, nearly tripping as she strode down the entryway stairs, skipping one with each step in an attempt to catch up with the boy, “I’m really sorry about him, he’s just… really stubborn. For what it’s worth, I appreciate you trying.”

Nino huffed and glared at the mansion’s doors as if trying to set them ablaze, “It’s not fair, dudette. Your dad is harsh. Uncool.”

**********

Adrien had a plan.

Wake up, go to school, wish Marinette a bonne anniversaire, give her a gift (good thing he lives in a bakery that Marinette likes), and _maybe_ ask her out on a date.

That last step was a bit iffy.

So far, the plan hasn't been going very well. He woke up late, slipped on what he was pretty sure was _nothing_ in the shower, missed breakfast, and to top it all off, he completely forgot to bring Marinette’s gift to the school.

So here he was, marching towards Marinette’s house to one, drop off his gift, and two, protect Nino from certain death.

At least, he would have been if Nino hadn’t stormed out of the gates as soon as he arrived.

“Dude, what just happened?” He asked, stumbling to his friend’s side, “What did M. Agreste say?”

Nino sneered in the direction of the mansion and began crudely imitating the millionaire, “I decide what’s best for my daughter! Since I control EVERYTHING that happens in Marinette’s life, you’re now a bad influence and you are not allowed here ever again!”

Adrien winced as Nino kicked a pebble across the street, “That’s harsh.”

“That’s what _I_ said!”

The DJ roughly plopped down onto a nearby bench and took a deep breath, “Listen, Adrien, I know you still need to drop off Marinette’s gift at her house. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

Adrien uncertainly narrowed his eyes at Nino, “Are you sure? I don’t want you to get Akumatized.”

Nino began shaking his head and laughing, “Dude, I don’t think I possess enough anger to get supervillain-ified. If I did get turned into one over this, though, I feel like that would be a pretty righteous way to go out.”

Adrien chuckled as Nino began blowing more bubbles, “I agree. Are you sure that you’re good?”

“Yeah, dude. Don’t worry about me.”

“Only if you’re sure.”

“DUDE.”

“Okay!”

**********

Marinette was doing her best to ignore her father.

He tried to come into her room and talk to her about the situation, but she kept turning away from him and not responding, quickly leading to Gabriel shouting something about ‘immature teenagers’ and stomping out of the room.

_Hehehe._ She mentally laughed, _you fell right into my trap._

Eventually, the time came around for her to return to school. Thankfully, her father wasn’t waiting for her in the entry hall, so her walk to the front door was peaceful.

Desolate may be a better world.

“That was one remarkable lunch break.” She emotionlessly said, “Wouldn’t you agree, Plagg?”

“I don’t understand ‘lunch breaks’.” Plagg shrugged, “Why not just eat whatever you want whenever you want? Like me?”

“For one, humans have a limit to how much they can eat before they die. They also don’t just turn food straight into energy like Kwamis do.”

The girl pushed the front door open and nearly had a heart attack when her entire class appeared and shouted, “BONNE ANNIVERSAIRE!”

Floating above the crowd atop a large bubble was a figure, _clearly_ a supervillain, who looked kind of like an upside-down primary-colored snowman.

“What’s up Dudette?” He shouted, “Guess what? Daddy’s _gone._ ”

Marinette froze. Sure, her father could be overbearing, but she didn’t want him _dead._

“...What? Nino?” She asked, a devastated expression taking over her face.

“Come on, girl! Parents are so lame! Always telling you what to do and how to do it. Now, all of the adults are floating to space, so nothing is stopping you from having your birthday party!”

Marinette quickly backed into the house and slammed the door shut.

“What’s the problem here?” Plagg asked as Marinette locked the door to her room, “You’re finally getting that birthday party you wanted!”

“Plagg, Nino’s been akumatized!” She exclaimed, “I have to help him!”

Plagg laid down on her shoulder and stared up with wide and pleading eyes, “Come on, kid! Your dad’s not here. That means nobody to tell you that you can’t have a party! Have a little fun for a while, then we can capture Nino’s Akuma and everything will be fine!”

“...”

“Kid?”

“Plagg, that is a HORRIBLE idea.”

“Wha- Marinette! How could you betray me like this!”

“You just told me to ignore a supervillain so I could party!”

“Uh… when you put it like that it does sound kind of bad.”

“You’re a terrible influence.”

“HEY!”

“Claws out!”

**********

After Adrien left Nino on that bench, he decided it might be better to wait until he went back to school to give Marinette her gift, because if M. Agreste was willing to go off on Nino for wanting Marinette to have a party…

_Jesus Christ._ He didn’t even want to think about it. 

So, he _tried_ to walk home, but those plans were swiftly halted when the sky began saturating with enormous bubbles that displayed the face of someone who looked vaguely like a Teletubby.

_“Today is your lucky day, little dudes. The adults have taken the day off, so make the most of it. No chores, no homework, no more nagging, just fun, fun, fun, fun. This is the Bubbler's gift to you.”_ He announced to the world before disappearing from the bubbles, revealing the people trapped inside.

Adrien would recognize that voice anywhere, “Nino?!”

Tikki zipped out of his satchel and hovered beside his face worriedly, “Hawk Moth must have released another Akuma!”

“I never should have left him alone! Spots on!”

**********

“What’s up, Kit?” Mister Bug asked as he softly landed beside the waiting girl, “Car troubles?”

The cat-themed hero grumbled quietly as they stared down at the party. The dancing teenagers were all very clearly miserable, “It’s nothing.”

Mister Bug was taken aback by her dull tone and lack of puns, “Okay, something is clearly up. I know we haven’t been heroes for very long, but I know you enough to tell when something is messing with you.”

“I just haven’t had a great day.” She huffed, “That’s not important right now. Come on.”

Before Mister Bug could protest, Kit extended her staff into The Bubbler’s currently playing record, breaking the table in half.

“Sorry to burst your bubble,” She taunted as she and Mister Bug landed, “but the party is over!”

“UUUUUGH!” The villain roared as the imprisoned teenagers scattered, “Why you gotta be like that?!”

“You sent all of the adults to space!” Kit shouted, swinging her staff at The Bubbler, who barely dove out of the way.

The villain rolled to his feet and drew his bubble wand as he spoke, “You two are ruining my party!”

“YOUR PARTY SUCKS!”

“DUDE, NOT COOL!”

He began spinning and swinging his bubble wand, creating red bubbles that began firing at the heroes like bullets.

“Oh SHIT!” Mister Bug yelped as he blocked one, only for it to violently explode and send him to the floor, soon followed by Kit.

“You may as well hand over your Miraculouses.” The Bubbler sneered.

“Come on, Nino-” Mister Bug tried.

“Dude, I’m not Nino anymore. I’m the Bubbler!”

“Fine. Bubbler. Do you really want all of the adults gone forever?”

“Uh, chyeah!”

Kit shook her head disapprovingly at her partner, who rubbed the back of his neck nervously, “Eheheh… that was probably a dumb question. You have to bring them back!”

“Who says?”

“I says!”

“Dude, you don’t get to says.”

“I SAYS!”

“DUDE YOU’RE SUCH A BUZZKILL!”

“NO, YOU’RE THE BUZZKILL!”

_“DUDE.”_

To their right, Kit noticed Alya recording the scuffle and almost collapsed from laughter right then and there. She was going to enjoy this later.

“Ladies, ladies, please.” She managed through her giggling, “You’re both pretty.”

She had to prop herself up on her staff when Mister Bug sassily flipped his hair, and the Bubbler attempted to do it and then remember he didn’t have any hair.

“Oh, DUDE. That is SO UNFAIR!” he roared, sending a swarm of green bubbles at the duo, who despite their attempts to block them, were quickly surrounded by a cloud of swirling soap that condensed into a singular bubble.

“Oh come on!” Mister Bug shouted, punching the bubble, “This is bull!”

“Everything Hawk Moth does is bullshit.” Kit deadpanned, “We’re fighting a bubble themed supervillain.”

“Hawk Moth says to stop making fun of his themes!” The Bubbler announced, “And SHUT UP BUBBLES ARE AWESOME!”

The villain hastily dashed over to their soapy cage and punted it as hard as he could, sending the heroes flying into the Parisian sky.

“Great.” Mister Bug huffed as they passed the tip of the Eiffel tower, “Good thing I’m not afraid of heights. Cats always land on their feet, right?”

Kit made an indignant noise and shoved his face as far away as it would go in the limited space, “I’m not a real cat you dingus!”

“And I’m not a ladybug but I still get the urge to eat aphids from time to time.”

“Ew!”

“I know, right? Now come one, we need to get out of this bubble. Your staff can extend forever right?”

Kit grabbed her staff and pressed the button, extending it to twice her body length and popping the bubble with it.

“Ladybugs can fly, right?” she asked, crossing her arms as they grew closer to the ground.

“Seriously?! Right now?!”

“Sorry! If it makes you feel any better, I push things off tables when I get bored!”

“That’s adorable! Do you want to catch me or should I catch you?!”

“The yoyo would probably make for a softer landing!”

“That’s what I was thinking too!” 

The blonde hero reached out to grab her clawed hand before whipping his yoyo around the Eiffel tower, sending them into a rough roll on one of the lower decks.

“It wasn’t soft.” Mister Bug grumbled as he shoved off of the concrete, “You good?”

“I can’t decide if this is the best or worst birthday ever.”

The blonde boy shot up, green eyes wide, “It’s your birthday? You should have told me! I would have gotten you something!”

Kit took in a sharp breath through her teeth, “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

“Really? Because it kind of sounded like a response to my question.”

“Okay, then I shouldn’t have said it!”

“Why?”

Before Kit could formulate a response, she was sent flying by an explosion as the Bubbler landed near them, sending explosive bubbles their way.

“Let’s talk about this after we beat him!” Kit squeaked, barely rolling out of the way of another fiery bubble.

“Dudes, you guys are the WORST!” The Bubbler screamed as he threw more projectiles at them, “Nobody insults my parties and gets away with it!”

He reared back and began firing more volatile bubbles at Kit, who dodged them by climbing higher on the tower.

“Dude, your aim sucks!” She taunted, “Get good!”

“FUCK YOU!”

Mister Bug took advantage of his focus on Kit to summon his Lucky Charm. To his dismay, a massive wrench fell into his hands.

“Of all the lucky charms I could get…” He sighed. After a quick look around, he was able to pick out a nearby air tube, conveniently attached by a hex nut that was the same size as the massive wrench.

“Okay… This is a weird one, but whatever works, I guess.” He said, “Hey! Bubbler!”

“Dude shut up I’m trying to fight your partner!”

“Bubbles are lame!”

The Bubbler roared in rage, and to Mister Bug’s enjoyment and total shock, completely forgot about Kit.

“BUBBLES ARE MY JAM, STOP SAYING THEY’RE LAME!” He screamed, launching more volatile bubbles at Mister Bug, who was able to direct them away from himself with the unscrewed air pipe.

“That’s TOTALLY CHEATING!” The Bubbler shrieked, lifting his weapon once more, much higher than before. To his surprise, it was suddenly tugged out of his grip.

“Yoink!” Kit yipped as she flew past, snapping the bubble wand in half and releasing the Akuma.

“What was that about it being the worst birthday ever?” Mister Bug asked as he purified the butterfly and activated his miraculous cure.

The dark-haired girl nervously tried to shrink into herself as she walked to Mister Bug’s side, “I’m sure that your Kwami told you that nobody can know who we are.”

The blonde boy groaned exasperatedly, “Jesus, you have no idea! Tikki constantly reminds me! Sure, I’d like to know who you are, but I’m not gonna force you to tell me or anything!”

“Really? Plagg only told me once.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Anyway, I just don’t want to accidentally ruin that by telling you something as normal as a birthday.”

Mister Bug sensed her discomfort and pulled her into a hug, “Don’t worry. I won’t dig into it.”

Kit sighed in relief, “Thank you.”

“...Buuuut… since I know I’m definitely getting you a gift. I need some time to get one, but would you be able to meet back here tomorrow night?”

“You really don’t need to-”

“I’m getting you a gift. No argument.”

An anxious beeping abruptly sounded from his earrings.

“Oh. I guess that’s my cue.” He said, “Bonne Anniversaire, my lady!”

And with that, he swung off into the distance, leaving Kit and Nino alone on the tower.

“Dude, what happened?” He asked as she kneeled beside his fatigued form, “Did I get akumatized?”

“Unfortunately.” She confirmed, “For what it’s worth, it seemed like you had good intentions.”

“Don’t they all.” He grumbled miserably.

“Hey, don’t get too down! It happens to a lot of people!”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“You know what? I think you could use a little fun. How would you like to fly around Paris with a superhero?”

**********

“Girl, I’m sorry that your birthday was so crummy.” Alya said as she and Marinette walked towards the doors of the school that afternoon, “No party, a supervillain at your house, damn!”

Marinette hummed dejectedly. While her friends had returned to the ground safely at her home, they had immediately been ushered away from the premises by Nathalie, who, just as Marinette predicted, gifted her the same pen for the fourth year.

Alya placed a gentle hand on the ravenette’s shoulder and pulled her into a hug, “If you ever need anything, you know I’m here for you, right?”

“Yeah.” she muttered, “Thank you.”

The reporter released her from the embrace and smiled at her before shoving the front doors open, revealing the entirety of her class waiting on the steps. Marinette nearly jumped out of her skin as they all shouted simultaneously, “BONNE ANNIVERSAIRE!” and surrounded her.

“What the hell?!” She screeched.

“We know you didn’t exactly have the best time yesterday, so we decided to retry it today!” Nino exclaimed, pushing to the front of the crowd, “I mean, technically it was Adrien’s idea, but we all pitched in. Mostly Adrien.”

The blonde boy was shoved to the center of the circle, blushing brighter than a wildfire, “It was no big deal.”

“Dude, you straight up bribed her bodyguard!” Nino shouted, “That was so cool!”

“Seriously?” Marinette asked incredulously.

“Yeah.” Adrien said, “You’d be surprised how much he’s willing to bend the rules for some freshly baked pastries.”

She smiled gently up at the green-eyed boy, a dusting of red on her cheeks as she gingerly planted a kiss on his cheek, “Thank you.”

“Ahahah it was my pleasure!” He squeaked, “Shouldn’t we get going if we’re gonna do anything before her bodyguard actually takes her?”

“Oh, dude you’re right!” Nino exclaimed, “Come on, we have it set up in the Place des Vosges.”

That day, for the first time in Marinette’s life, she had a birthday party. Sure, it was a day late, but she wouldn’t have asked for it any other way.

**********

Late that night, only a couple hours before midnight, Marinette found herself resting atop the Eiffel tower in her superhero suit, waiting for her knight in shining whatever-these-superhero-suits-are-made-of. 

She had to admit, it was… refreshing, to say the least, that Mister Bug knew something personal about her, even if it was just a birthday date. Sure, they were partners, friends even, but they weren’t allowed to really know each other, and that really bothered her. She couldn't even begin to count the times that she'd laid awake at night just to wonder who he might be.

“Kit!”

The blue-eyed girl’s false ears perked up at the sound of Mister Bug landing beside her, “Hey, bug.”

“Bonne anniversaire.” He said softly, sliding a red and black polka-dotted scarf off of his neck and holding it out to her, “Sorry I couldn’t find anything better. Most of the things I’m good at in my civilian life don’t involve the creation of something, and the one thing that does would most definitely tell you who I am.”

She sent him a fanged smile and accepted the gift, wrapping it around her neck, “Isn’t your Kwami the Kwami of creation?”

Mister Bug scoffed at the sky as if to curse the universe, “You’d think that I would get some residual creation magic or something, but no. All I get is the ability to play dead and hibernate.”

He suddenly paused and turned to Kit slowly, “You said you push stuff of tables when you get bored, right?”

Kit narrowed her eyes as the boy began approaching her, “What are you doing?”

“What other cat things do you do?”

He swiftly darted forward and placed his open palm on her stomach, prompting her to reel back and hiss defensively, “Hey!”

“Oh my god. That was incredible. Can I do it again?”

Her pupils narrowed to slits as she continued hissing, “I will bite you.”

“Okay! Okay. So… what if I pet you?”

“No.”

“Come on, what if you can purr?”

“It would be demeaning!”

“It would be adorable! Please?”

“NO!”

He sighed and raised his hands in defeat when she began advancing on him, claws drawn, “Okay. I’ll stop. Come sit with me, will you?”

After a few more moments of defensive hissing and claw swipes, she relented and slinked to his side, “Don’t touch my stomach.”

“I get it! Sorry!”

The duo swung their legs over the edge of the deck and drifted into a comfortable silence.

 _Best birthday ever._ Kit mentally sighed, leaning into Mister Bug’s side.

Suddenly, his gloved hand placed itself in her messy hair and raked through it, and before she could stop it, a low rumbling pushed its way out of her throat.

“I was right!” He cried victoriously as Kit slapped a hand over her mouth and descended into a blushing mess, “It was adorable!”

“Bug, stop! You tricked me!” She squealed, melting into the petting and continuing to purr despite her entire brain telling her to not give in.

“Kit, that trap was so obvious. I cannot believe you fell for it. Besides, you’re clearly enjoying this.”

As much as she wanted to push him off the tower, he was right. For whatever reason, the sensation of his hands on her head was unnaturally blissful.

“Shut up.” She mumbled, “It’s humiliating.”

“It’s cute!”

“Leave me alone!”

“NEVER!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I absolutely adore the trope where the miraculous holders act like their animal or whatever you call it if that wasn't apparent.


	5. M. Pigeon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to Mirror_Face for beta reading this chapter!

“Plagg! Stop laughing!” Marinette hissed as she shoved through the entrance to her school. Somehow, despite the extensive measures her father takes to make sure she was always on time, she managed to wake up late. 

“Pfffft, hahahaha!” The kwami cackled from inside her school bag, clutching his stomach.

“PLAGG!”

“Whaaatt?”

“I told you to wake me up if I overslept!”

“It’s not my fault that you stayed up until two in the morning playing with needles!”

“It’s called STITCHING!”

“Stitching, hitching, bitching, whatever! You’d better shut up before someone sees you arguing with your school bag!”

The girl, in one swift motion, reached into her purse, flicked Plagg in the head, and shoved her way through the large wooden door that led to her classroom.

“Marinette!”

She had to force down a cringe as her principal, M. Damocles, announced her arrival delightedly, “Sorry, sir. I was stuck in traffic. It won’t happen again.”

“Oh, it’s no problem.” He assured, “Please, take a seat.”

The dark-haired girl slid into her seat awkwardly, garnering a sympathetic pat on the shoulder from Alya.

“As I was saying,” M. Damocles continued, folding his hands behind his back, “Today, our school is hosting a fashion design competition. You have until the end of the day to submit a design of your own making. Partners are allowed. At the end of the day, the winning design will be decided by none other than Gabriel Agreste, the father of our very own student, Marinette Agreste. In fact, Marinette will be modeling the winning design in an advertising campaign in the near future.”

He paused as Ms. Bustier smiled and clicked a button on her handheld presenter, displaying an image of Marinette’s father, an awkwardly forced smile on his face.

“This year’s theme…” the principal paused as if waiting for a drumroll that never came, “Derby hats!”

**********

Adrien originally had no intention of participating in this competition, but when Chloé and Sabrina immediately began taunting them from across the classroom, he vowed to absolutely _destroy them._

Unfortunately, he didn’t have the slightest idea of how to design.

“Derby hat? What the hell is a derby hat?” He muttered, “Who even wears derby hats?”

“Don’t worry, Adrien.” Alya patted his shoulder, though her eyes displayed a similar concern, “I know a little bit about design. Not much, but… enough? I can sew!”

The blonde boy somehow sunk even farther down than he already had. They had no chance.

_Unless…_

“Hey… What about Marinette?” He asked hopefully, turning to Alya, “Doesn’t she design as a hobby?”

“I’m right here, you know.” The blue-eyed girl said from between the two, though she went unheard.

“Dude, try obsession.” Alya scoffed, “As far as I know, she’s never worn anything that she hasn’t made herself.”

Adrien had a hard time believing that Marinette could have worn diapers made by herself, but he decided not to dwell on it, “So can she participate?”

“Guys!”

Alya sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration, “I already asked. She’s sitting out. Her dad’s the judge. According to her, it would be too biased. For or against, you may ask? She says both. It’s about as confusing as it sounds.”

“I’M RIGHT HERE!”

Across the courtyard, Chloé and Sabrina stuck their tongues out tauntingly. Adrien wanted to rip them out.

He hummed thoughtfully, “Maybe she can’t participate, but there’s no rule that says she can’t help.”

“OH MY GOD!”

The two teenagers finally moved their attention to the irritated girl between them, 

“Need something?” Alya asked.

“If you want help, just ask!”

“Well… would you be able to-”

“MARIKINS!”

The ravenette had to clench her fists around the hem of her shirt to expel her combination of hatred and surprise when Chloé sauntered over and tore her out of her seat.

“I couldn’t help but overhear that you’re offering help!” The blonde girl said with such a sickening sweetness that it made Marinette want to puke.

“I was offering it to Alya and Adrien.” She muttered, trying not to gag on Chloé’s perfume.

“Well, that’s not very fair, is it?” Chloé pouted, “Besides, aren’t we friends?”

Marinette had to bite her tongue to prevent a groan from escaping her lips, “Sure. I can help you-”

“Great! Come on, we have work to do!”

The Mayor’s daughter quickly turned on her heels and began dragging Marinette away.

“I was gonna say after I helped Alya and Adrien!”

Clearly, Chloé had heard everything she wanted to, as she was no longer responding to any of Marinette’s protests.

“ _Help me._ ” She hissed, glaring pleadingly at her now frozen friends as she was steered through the front doors of the school to her inevitable doom.

**********

“Get pumped, Sunshine.” Alya said, lightly punching Adrien's shoulder as they sat down at the Trocadéro, “Operation: Save Marinette From Chloé And Also Get Her Help Designing A Derby Hat And Think Of A Shorter Name For This Operation is a go!”

The blonde boy had to blink extremely hard to ensure that he was indeed in the real world. Since when did Alya, the girl who constantly risked her life chasing after supervillains just to get a few seconds of footage, plan _anything?_

“What?” He managed as she punched at the air like there was some sort of sandbag hanging in front of her, “I’m so confused. What are we even doing?”

“Saving Marinette!” She roared, drawing the attention of nearly everyone around them, “Your princess is currently in the grimy claws of that pampered dragon, and it is your duty as her knight to slay the dragon and free her from the looming tower!”

His flushed head sank like a rock into his open hands, out of both embarrassment for his friend and because _holy shit Alya just said Marinette was my princess._

“Alya, what are you even planning to do?” He groaned, “Do you even know where they are?”

“Psh! Of course I know! Marinette and I are besties, she’s been keeping me updated!”

“...Would you mind sharing that information?”

“Oh sure. She’s at the Mayor’s hotel.”

He sighed, burying his face even further in his hands, “Obviously. Seriously, how are you even planning to get her out? Anything short of breaking and entering probably won’t work. At all. And I would rather not become a criminal.”

Alya’s silence prompted him to shoot straight up and give her a side-eyed glare, “We aren’t breaking into the hotel and kidnapping Marinette.”

“I wasn’t gonna say that!”

“I really think you were.”

“I mean… It might work?”

“No.”

“UGH! When did you grow a backbone?”

“I hope you know that I find that offensive.”

“Sure. Hold on, shut up, she’s texting me again. ‘Please help me I’m literally dying. Save me.”

As Alya began to text her friend back, a loud pigeon squawk sounded from the bottom of the stairs. Adrien’s eyes were immediately drawn to a lanky man, dressed in a solid gray suit with a green checkered vest and an oversized baby-blue bowtie, who waddled to a nearby bench in a very chicken-like fashion.

“Uhmmm… Alya?”

“Gimme a minute.”

As the man sat down, he pulled a brown paper bag from inside his jacket and lifted a bird call that was strung around his neck. The noise that it produced was shockingly lifelike, Adrien thought, and apparently so did a large group of nearby pigeons.

“Ohohoh, happy day!” The man exclaimed, tossing a handful of birdseed into the crowd of birds, “Happy day, indeed!”

An odd tingling made its way into Adrien’s nose as another flock of pigeons flew over his head to eat some of the grain.

_Oh, right…_ he remembered bitterly, trying to hold back his sneeze, _feather allergy._

“Okay.” Alya slid her phone back into her pocket, “What were you saying?”

Adrien wordlessly pointed to the spindly man, who continued to cheer joyfully as the crowd of pigeons grew.

“Aren’t you allergic to feathers?” Alya asked, prompting Adrien to sneeze loudly.

“Yeah. Can we leave? Why did we even come here to begin with? You know I live right beside the school, right?”

As they stood, a large man in blue- a police officer- marched past in a determined beeline towards the bird-man, who cried out in dismay as the crowd of pigeons scattered.

“M. Ramier.” The officer said sternly, looming above the man and slowly gaining volume as he spoke, “How many times do you need to be told? Feeding the pigeons is strictly prohibited!”

“B-but who else will feed my precious pigeons?” The man, now dubbed M. Ramier, grieved as the cloud of grey birds disappeared into the sky.

“If you feed them, they leave their waste everywhere! It’s a health hazard!”

“But I-”

“There’s a reason that you’re banned from every park in Paris, M. Ramier! GET OUT!”

As they watched M. Ramier dejectedly sulk away, Adrien made a mental note to keep a watch for Akumas. If his reaction was any indicator as to what might happen, a supervillain was _definitely_ a possibility.

**********

Adrien was right. He also learned very quickly to _never_ ride the bus again when he thought an Akuma might show up.

“Dude, this traffic SUCKS!” Alya groaned, “We haven’t moved in AGES!”

“Seriously.” Adrien said, staring sullenly out the window, “The light’s green. What kind of traffic is this anyways?”

“And seriously, what’s with these pigeons? They’re everywhere!”

“No kidding. It’s like…”

He paused to take another look out the window. Pigeons _were_ everywhere.

“Alya…” He said warily, “You have a forum on your blog for Akuma sightings, right?”

“Why? You think there’s a pigeon Akuma?”

“I don’t see how this could be anything else.”

She whipped out her phone and opened her Mister Blog A.K.A. Kit Chat (Name patent pending), and to Adrien’s dismay, nodded.

“A bunch of people have been posting about a ‘M. Pigeon’ in the past few minutes,” She said, scrolling through a list of recent posts, “sources also say that police and park keepers are disappearing.”

“Fantastic.” He muttered, dragging his hands down his face in irritation.

“Well… I don’t know about you, but I’m gonna go after that Akuma! I haven’t gotten any new footage since Mister Bug and The Bubbler’s sass-fighting last week! You can come with me if you want.”

“I’m good. I’m just gonna try to find somewhere that won’t make me sneeze every three seconds.”

He watched her exit the bus and run off down the street, hair flying behind her wildly as she tried to avoid stomping on any pigeons, before exiting the bus himself and finding a secure place to hide.

“This is going to suck...” He grumbled as Tikki flew up out of his satchel, “You wouldn’t happen to be able to cure allergies, would you?”

“I’m afraid not, Adrien. I can try to reduce the intensity while you are transformed, but nothing I can do is permanent.” she squeaked apologetically.

He sighed, gently patting her head, “Thanks anyway. Spots on!”

**********

Marinette had a really bad migraine. It was named Chloé.

For an indeterminate amount of time (Marinette stopped counting after the first thirty minutes), Chloé had been badgering her for ‘advice’, A.K.A. telling her to make a design so she could pay someone professional to make it for her.

_Both of those are against the rules_ , Marinette had tried to point out.

_Who cares? Nobody will notice._ Chloé oh-so-eloquently responded.

Marinette made a mental note to tell _everyone_ she knew that Chloé was cheating.

“OMIGOD THANK YOU!” The blonde girl squealed as Marinette put the last agonizing touches on her sketch.

“No problem.” She said through gritted teeth, “Can I leave now?”

“But why would you want to leave? We can have so much fun here! Just the two of us!”

Marinette felt a violent chill go down her spine at the thought of spending time _alone_ with _Chloé._

“Chloé, I promised-”

“UGH. Don’t tell me you’re still going to help those two losers.”

The ravenette’s eye twitched, “Those _losers_ are my friends.”

“So you admit that they’re losers! HA!”

“ _NO_. Chloé I just-…” Her phone buzzed in her pocket, interrupting her. A glance at the screen showed a text from Alya.

_GIRL! PIGEON THEMED SUPERVILLAIN_ -Alya

Marinette nearly melted in relief, “My father wants me at home.”

“Ugh, why?”

 _Even if it was true, it’s none of your beeswax._ “I don’t know.”

“Oh alright, _fine_. You can go.”

She began moving towards the door before Chloé had a chance to say anything else, expertly dodging a glomp as she moved.

“HOLY SHIT FINALLY!” Plagg groaned loudly as Marinette closed the door behind her and darted to the closest window, “I thought we were NEVER going to leave!”

“You’re not the only one.”

“Why’d you even let her drag you here? She’s the WORST.”

“I mean… Chloé’s not a great person, that’s obvious, but I just don’t…”

“Don’t what? You agree that she’s horrible, so I don’t see the problem here.”

“I guess I just don’t want to be a jerk.”

“Kid, I’m gonna give you some advice. Absolutely destroy her.”

“I hope you don’t mean in the ‘Cataclysm’ way.”

“You’re a superhero, aren’t you? Just channel some of that confidence. Don’t be afraid to call her out when she’s wrong.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“It is that easy.”

“It’s really not.”

“Believe what you want, then. We have a supervillain to stop!”

“You sound weirdly excited to transform.”

“After all that time with Chloé, anything sounds fun in comparison.”

“You have a point. Claws out!”

**********

When Kit finally found her red-and-black-clad partner on a nearby building, she nearly fell off the roof when he immediately sneezed.

“Bless you?” She asked confusedly as he rubbed his nose and sniffed.

“I’m allergic to feathers.” He grumbled, “I want to punch Hawk Moth so many times.”

“Are you gonna be able to fight?” She asked softly, squeezing his slumped shoulder comfortingly as he managed to hold back a second sneeze, “I can try to do it by myself if you’re not up to it. I’ll call you when I get the object.”

“No way.” He insisted, “We’re superheroes, a stupid allergy won’t stop me!”

“Only if you’re sure.”

“Don’t worry about me. Besides, pigeons aren’t our only problem. Police officers and Park keepers are disappearing all over the city.”

“That’s… really weird?”

“Believe it or not, I’m actually pretty sure I saw him earlier. Before his akumatization, I mean.”

“No kidding?”

“No kidding.”

“Cool. How do we find him?”

Mister Bug placed a hand on his chin, partially to look contemplative and partially because he really had to sneeze again, “Well… He’s somehow able to find the park keepers and police officers, right?”

“Right?”

“So we just need to find a police officer, and when they get taken, we can follow them and it’ll lead us straight to M. Pigeon!”

**********

“When you said we needed a police officer, this wasn’t what I had in mind.”

Unfortunately, there was a severe shortage of police officers and park keepers, so Kit took it upon herself to be the live bait by wearing a hat with the police insignia on the front. There was no way she was making Mister Bug do it with his feather allergy.

What kind of asshole would do that?

Unfortunately, it was an extremely monotonous task, just waiting for the villain to show up.

“Just act natural.” Mister Bug insisted from behind a tree that was definitely way too small to hide behind, “They’ll show up eventually.”

“Whatever do you mean?” she innocently asked, humming La Marseillaise as she paced back and forth.

“I can tell that you’re getting antsy.” He said, “Are you sure you don’t want me to be the bait?”

“No way am I letting you do it.” She scolded, “I’m fine. I just need to get some energy out.”

“Please do.”

She waited for Mister Bug to duck back behind his tree before beginning to tap her feet to the tune of her humming.

“What are you doing?” Mister Bug whispered, a hint of mirth behind his question.

“Billie Jean!” She whooped, suddenly leaping into the smoothest moonwalk Mister Bug had ever seen, “Wanna dance with me?”

“I don’t dance.”

“Lame!”

“Besides, there’s no way I could compete-”

He suddenly paused, inhaling a few times before sneezing like a cannon. All around the park, feathers began raining from the sky.

“I think this is my ride.” Kit sighed, looking up to see a cloud of pigeons descending upon her, “Let’s hope it’s delivery and not take out.”

**********

It was odd, to say the least, when Kit was gently deposited atop the Grand Paris hotel, no sign of any police officers, park keepers, or M. Pigeon anywhere. There was nothing unusual but the unusually large amount of pigeons perched along the border of the building.

“No M. Pigeon?” Mister Bug asked as he landed, “Come on!”

“You know, I get the feeling he knows that we’re not police officers.” Kit deadpanned, placing her hands on her hips, “It might just be me, but I think an eight-foot long braid and a catsuit kind of make me stand out.”

Mister Bug rolled his eyes and scoffed, “Puh-lease. You have it easy. Try playing hide and seek with a red and black spotted suit.”

“Have you played hide and seek as a superhero?”

“...I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“No no no, you’re gonna talk about it. How on earth could you do something like that?”

“I’m sorry! I know, it’s an irresponsible use of-”

“Without inviting me!”

“Huh?”

“That sounds like so much fun, Bug!”

“...That’s definitely not how I expected you to react.”

“Why? Aren’t you supposed to be the responsible one?”

“Why do I have to be the responsible one?!”

As the duo descended into their argument, they failed to notice the pigeon themed villain rising into the sky nearby and blowing into his birdcall until it was too late.

“I never said you had to be, I just think you’re way more responsible than I am!”

“No way! How many times have you broken the akumatized object so far?”

“I don’t know!”

“Like HALF of the time!”

“That just means we’re EQUALLY RESPONSIBLE!”

“WHY ARE WE EVEN ARGUING ABOUT THIS?!”

Suddenly, a large steel cage slammed down around them, knocking them to the floor from the sheer volume of its impact.

“Ohohoho!” M. Pigeon’s shrill voice echoed across the rooftop as he soared in closer atop his cloud of pigeons, “Mister Bug and Kit Noire, hand over your Miraculous!”

_Yeah_ , Mister Bug thought, _that’s the guy from the Trocadéro._

“Or what?!” He replied rather cockily, shaking his fist at the villain, “Your pigeons will poop on us?!”

“Mmh. Precisely.”

Every pigeon on the rooftop quickly flipped around and lifted their tails, aiming their crap cannons at the heroes.

“I hate you so much right now.” Kit breathed, “Never ask ‘or what’ ever again, it’s such an amateur move.”

“I know- I’m so sorry!” he squeaked.

“You have until the count of three! One-”

Before the villain could get too far into his countdown, Kit summoned her Cataclysm and swiped her claws across the cage, pulverizing it into rust.

“You didn’t seriously forget about that, right?” She sassed, snapping her staff out and beginning to spin it menacingly, “Did Hawk Moth forget to tell you?”

“Oh my…” M. Pigeon grimaced as his armed pigeons scattered, retreating to the edge of the roof, “Whatever will I do?”

“If you’re smart, you’ll hand over your birdcall.”

His eyes narrowed, “Oh, you mean this birdcall? I don’t think so. I have a flight to catch.” 

He slowly and deliberately brought the whistle to his mouth and blew into it before unflinchingly leaping off the edge of the building. Kit and Mister Bug both froze as he disappeared over the edge.

“Holy shit.” Kit cursed under her breath, “Did he just...?”

To both her relief and irritation, the villain rose past them on another inexplicably solid cloud of birds, arms crossed tauntingly.

“Roo! Rloo!” He cried as the mount quickly dissipated and reformed into an airplane-like shape, “Open fire!”

Pigeons began firing rapidly from the airplane shaped bird blob, traveling at inexplicably high speeds towards the heroes.

“Run! Get inside!” Kit screeched as one pierced through the nearby skylight. All around them, pigeons began impaling themselves into the concrete like a rain of knives. The two were barely able to dive into a nearby stairwell and slam the metal door shut behind them before a salvo of birds began battering into the barrier. They both slumped against the door as M. Pigeon’s cackling on the other side of the door faded away.

“Holy shit.” Mister Bug breathed, “Did we almost get shot by pigeons?”

Kit nodded wordlessly as her ring beeped, losing one pad.

“I don’t think we have time to find him again before you run out of energy.” Mister Bug pointed out, “Do you have anything for your Kwami to eat?”

She sighed, returning to her feet, “Unfortunately, no. I left all of my cinnamon in my bag before this started.”

“Huh. So that’s why you always smell like cinnamon.”

Kit paused, slowly turning to her partner, “Why do you know what I smell like?”

Mister Bug didn’t even hesitate to answer, “Cinnamon has a pretty potent smell.”

“Okay, sure, but _why._ ”

A dozen flights of stairs later, the heroes shoved into the crowded lobby, where the Mayor, André Bourgeois, and several of the hotel’s guests were packed near the door, nervously clamoring as they stared out at the fowl infested streets.

“Oh, Mister Bug! Kit Noire!” André exclaimed, rushing to their sides as he dabbed droplets of sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief, “You are going to solve this… _issue_ … right? My guests are beginning to demand refunds, and I just don’t know how much more I can take!”

The heroes shared a look that most definitely said’ Seriously?’ and blinked.

“We’re working on it.” Mister Bug mumbled as Kit’s ring beeped again, though she didn’t seem very panicked. He would probably have been dancing around and trying to find a way out of the conversation.

“You wouldn’t happen to have anything with cinnamon in it, would you?” She casually asked, groaning at her ring as if she was staring at a broken watch.

“Yes, of course!” The mayor exclaimed, “May I ask why?”

“Secret superhero stuff.” She snarked, “I also need a place to hide in the next, uh, fifteen seconds.”

Before M. Bourgeois had even finished raising his hand, Kit darted into a nearby supply closet and slammed the door behind her, almost immediately followed by a bright flash of blue light and a loud groaning from who Mister Bug could only assume was her Kwami.

“MY POOR TINY KWAMI BODY!” He wailed, “I CAN’T MOVE A MUSCLE!”

“Jesus, Plagg. I know you’re dramatic, but this is a whole new level.” Kit groaned as a small object thumped against the floor.

“Ahem.” Someone cleared their throat, tapping on Mister Bug’s shoulder. He turned to see a sharply dressed man with a thin mustache holding out a covered plate, “Freshly baked cinnamon danishes.”

“Oh. Thanks.” He muttered, taking the dish into his hands and tapping the door with his foot, “Delivery?”

“Thank god this place has good room service.” Kit mumbled, “Just set it on the floor there. Plagg can get it himself.”

Before he could process what had happened, a tiny black blur shot through the door and under the cloche, immediately tearing into whatever was underneath.

“So… What now?” Kit’s muffled voice came through the door, “We lost M. Pigeon.”

“I wouldn’t say we lost him, per se.” Mister Bug shrugged, “More like he lost us.”

“Same thing.”

“It’s really not. I’ll go look outside and see if I can spot him.”

He shuffled over to the front doors, through the crowd, and onto the street, shooing away the clutter of pigeons closest to him.

“Damn.” He shuddered, turning his vision to the sky, “This _sucks._ ”

As Mister Bug looked upwards, he noticed a ball of pigeons flying by. Then another, and another, and another after that. The last one to pass dropped a blue hat that he was able to identify as a police hat when it landed near him.

“I know where to go!” He blurted as he shoved through the door, finding Kit stretching as she waltzed out of the closet in her recharged suit. She hummed inquisitively as he approached.

“That was fast.” He chuckled.

“You underestimate the size of Plagg’s stomach. You said you know where to go?”

He wore a relieved smile on his face as he spoke, “All of the pigeons were flying in the same direction. We just have to follow them!”

**********

“The Grand Palais.” Kit shrugged as they landed on its roof softly, “I would say ‘obviously’ but it wasn’t obvious so I won’t.”

Mister Bug sighed loudly and pinched the bridge of his nose, “What.”

“Hm?”

“Why did you even say that second part?”

“I don’t know.”

They both leaned over the glass roof, scanning the room and quickly finding M. Pigeon perched on a catwalk above a cage packed with park keepers and police officers.

“I’m so sick of these pigeons.” Mister Bug growled, lifting his yoyo and beginning to spin it, “Let’s get him. Right now.”

Suddenly, his yoyo was tangled up around Kit’s staff and he was dragged back to their hiding spot.

“Ow.” He muttered.

“If it isn’t obvious, he’s totally prepared for us.” Kit pointedly said, gesturing to the rafters filled with pigeons, “We need a plan.”

“I have a plan. Whoop his ass.”

“That doesn’t sound like a very complete plan.”

“Well, what would you suggest?”

“Sneak attack.”

Mister Bug’s eyes widened in childish delight, “Sneak attack?”

“Sneak attack.”

“That sounds so badass.”

“I know. I’m gonna open this window. Tie up M. Pigeon and drag him up here so we can get the bird call without too much trouble. Can you do that, Mister Badass?”

The blonde boy cursed under his breath, “Damn, I should have called myself Mister Badass.”

“You really shouldn’t have. Get ready.”

Mister Bug nodded, beginning to spin his yoyo as Kit lifted the window.

“Ready?” She asked, only for Mister Bug to sneeze so violently that he fell through the window, landing on the catwalk below with a loud clang.

“OW!” He groaned loudly as Kit quickly dropped to his side and helped him to his feet, “FUCKING PIGEONS!”

“Mister Bug and Kit Noire…” M. Pigeon sneered, stepping onto a pigeon platform and descending from his perch to the ground below, “How graceful. I thought my precious pigeons dealt away with you back at the hotel.”

The two heroes hopped down to meet him, though Mister Bug was still rubbing his nose uncomfortably.

“Think again, Bird-Ass.” Kit rolled her eyes, “Pigeons are no match for us.”

“I beg to differ.” Mister Bug shuddered, barely keeping in a sneeze.

“Is that so?” The Akuma asked before blowing into his bird call, “Deedly-dee, come to me! I have a bone to peck with you!”

Before the heroes had a chance to do anything, massive spheres of pigeons joined together at the tips of M. Pigeon’s hands and shot forward, roughly sending them across the room.

“I hate this so much.” Mister Bug grumbled, “Lucky Charm!”

In a flash of red light, a large bag of popcorn fell into his hands.

“Mid-game snack?” Kit asked, “I could eat.”

The green-eyed boy examined the room. Pigeons, _scavenger birds_ , were everywhere.

“Not for us.” He smirked, dropping the container into her arms, “Try to get a bunch of popcorn on him. I’ll try to immobilize him once you do.”

The villain dove at them, sending a punch their way only for it to meet solid ground as Mister Bug sailed into the rafters above, and Kit vaulted over his head, squeezing the bag of popcorn and busting the bottom open, raining several servings of snacks upon the unsuspecting villain.

“That’ll work.” Mister Bug nodded, waiting for M. Pigeon to be surrounded by his own pigeons before wrapping his yoyo around his ankles and pulling him into the air.

“NOOO!” the villain cried as his birdcall fell from around his neck and into Kit’s waiting hands.

“Fantastic job today, Mister Bug.” she said, crushing the object and releasing the butterfly.

“I’m just glad that these pigeons aren’t gonna be everywhere.” He sighed, gently lowering the man to the floor as he returned to his natural state. He quickly captured and purified the butterfly before it could get too far away and tossed what was left of his lucky charm into the air, summoning the miraculous ladybugs to repair any damage done during the attack.

“Hopefully we won’t have to deal with him anymore.”

“If he shows up again, I’m gonna lose it.”

“Mhm. Well, good luck to you, but I have somewhere to be!”

Kit picked up her staff and disappeared through the front door, only for Mister Bug to realize…

“I HAVE SOMEWHERE TO BE!”

**********

Much to Adrien’s irritation, Chloé’s hat won before he could even make it back to the school. According to Alya, the judging process was quick and painless, but something about the way that Rose lumbered down the street said otherwise.

“That’s not a real feather, right?” He asked as he, Alya, and Marinette sat down on the entry stairs to the school, “I’m allergic, so…”

“Oh, really?” Marinette asked, twirling the winning hat in her hands absentmindedly, “Weird…”

His face immediately began flushing. Was there something wrong with a feather allergy? Why was it weird?

“I don’t mean that you’re weird!” She quickly amended, placing a gentle hand on his knee to try and comfort him, “I just… I know someone else with a feather allergy. It’s just a weird coincidence. Those aren’t very common, right?”

“I-I guess.” He stuttered, his blush only increasing the longer that her hand remained on his knee.

“Well, don’t worry. It’s not a real feather. You’re safe.”

“As much as I hate to admit it,” Alya, to Adrien’s relief, cut in, “she did have the best design.”

“I mean… technically it’s _my_ design.” Marinette shrugged, flipping the hat upside down to reveal her name hidden in the embroidery, “It’s whatever.”

“That… makes a ton of sense.”

Adrien huffed and rolled his eyes, “I’m still pissed that Chloé got the satisfaction of winning though.”

Marinette just shook her head, “It was a hollow victory. Don’t let it bog you down too much.”

“You know what?” Alya said before Adrien could complain any more, “You two look like you could use some fun. Non-Chloé related fun. What do you say about going to see a movie? My treat.”

Marinette shrugged, “Considering that Nathalie didn’t drag me home when she left, I’m gonna pretend that it’s okay.”

“Nice! What about you, blondie?”

Adrien pursed his lips and slowly nodded. A movie sounded fun.

“Yeah. That sounds nice.”

“Sweet! You’re sitting next to Marinette!”


	6. Copycat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternatively titled Impostor-Bug
> 
> BTW Still haven't come up with alternate ship names. so if anyone has ideas for those, please leave a comment.
> 
> Thanks again to Mirror_Face for beta reading!

“...This isn’t my phone.”

Adrien paused at the bottom of the stairs outside of his school to examine the device in his hands more thoroughly. 

“Bro, what?” Nino asked, leaning closer to get a better look, “How could it not be your phone?”

The blonde boy flipped the phone over, displaying the customized pink case, “You think I’m capable of making something like this?”

To his surprise, Nino began laughing- _cackling_ as his eyes rested upon the appliance, “D-dude!” He gasped, propping himself up on the railings of the steps, “That’s Marinette’s phone! Here, look…”

Nino gingerly took the gadget from Adrien’s hands and pressed the home screen button, revealing an image of the two boys standing with Alya and Marinette, holding up peace signs on the Pont des Arts.

“Don’t worry, man.” Nino assured, “Marinette’s a chill girl, she’s not gonna think you stole her phone or anything.”

Instead of listening to what his friend was saying, Adrien proceeded to do what was really the only logical thing to do in this situation. Panic.

**********

When Marinette picked up a call from Alya, the last thing she expected was to be called ‘Blondie.’

_“Blondie! Are you-”_

“Excuse me?”

_“Marinette?”_

“Yes, this is Marinette.”

_“Why do you have Adrien’s phone?”_

“What?”

_“Yeah. I just called Adrien. You picked up.”_

“Just a sec.”

The ravenette moved the phone into view and true to Alya's words, it wasn’t her cellphone. 

“...Yeah. This isn’t my phone.”

_“You stole Adrien’s phone?”_

Marinette’s stomach dropped at the accusation, “What? No, of course not!”

_“Chill, girl. I know you wouldn’t do that. You know what? I bet you and Adrien accidentally swapped earlier during class. I’ll call your phone once we’re done to confirm.”_

Marinette nodded slowly, “Yeah, good idea.” 

She had no idea how their phones could have been switched, but at least her phone hadn’t been stolen or anything.

_“Hey, are you gonna be able to make it to the statue unveiling?”_ Alya asked, sounding hopeful. After a few seconds of silence she added, _“I know that your dad is pretty strict, but...”_

“Sorry, I can’t.” Marinette apologized, “It’s not because of him, though. I have a self-defense class today.”

_“Oh, bummer. You know, I’ve considered taking those, what with my-”_

“Total lack of self-preservation?”

_“I was gonna say relentless pursuit of reliable information and high-quality footage, but that works too. Oh, they’re starting soon. I’m gonna go now, so I can call your phone before they begin.”_

And with that, Alya disconnected.

“You hear that, Plagg?” She called across the room to the Kwami as he slowly chewed on a snickerdoodle, “Time to go!”

Plagg sneered, “You just said we couldn’t make it.”

“I may have left out the fact that classes were canceled today for the unveiling. But Alya doesn’t need to know that.”

“Ugh. Fine, just give me a minute to finish eating.”

“Nope! We’re already late! Claws out!”

**********

When the phone began buzzing in Adrien’s hand, he immediately dropped it and tried to hide.

“Bro, we’re dead. We’re so dead!” He said as he panicked, “M. Agreste knows that I have Marinette’s phone! He’s gonna send an assassin after me because he thinks I stole it!”

Nino lightly shook his head as Adrien leaped into his bed and buried himself in blankets, “Way to make a mountain out of a molehill, man. Did you even check who was calling?”

“IT’S MARINETTE’S DAD!”

Nino crouched down to pick up the device and flipped the ringer on. Instead of the drab and basic ringtone that signified Marinette’s father calling, it was an enthusiastic speech about how great of a friend the blue-eyed girl is and that she should answer the phone.

“Dude, it’s Alya.”

“ALYA IS AN ASSASSIN!”

Nino had to facepalm as he answered the phone to keep himself from groaning, “Hey, Alya.”

_“Nino? You have Marinette’s phone?”_

“Nah. Adrien had it, but he’s kind of in the middle of a mental breakdown. What can I do for you?”

_“Pft! Oh boy. Um… I was just calling to check if he actually had it. See, Marinette has Adrien’s phone-”_

Nino couldn’t stop the laugh from escaping his throat, “Sorry. Sorry, I just… wow. _WOW._ That sounds like something straight out of a sitcom.”

_“Yeah… well, I’ve gotta go. I kind of hung up on Marinette just so I could have enough time to confirm…”_

“Confirm?”

_“Sorry, I’m hanging up! Bye!”_

As quickly as she had come, she was gone, leaving an annoying dial tone in her place.

“Okay. There’s good news and there’s bad news.” Nino clapped his hands together loudly, prompting Adrien to jolt up from his fortress of blankets and pillows that he had tried to bury himself in, “Good news, You don’t have an assassin after you.”

“I’m now realizing how ridiculous that sounded.” Adrien miserably mumbled, “Sorry for freaking out.”

“Bad news. Marinette has your phone.”

“WHAT?!”

“Actually… is that bad news?”

Adrien screamed.

**********

Kit normally loved the attention that came with being a superhero, but having to stand in front of the crowd and address said crowd without Mister Bug was just really awkward.

By the time the ceremony was over, her partner still hadn’t shown, and she was just growing worried. Had something happened? The two of them had spoken about coming to this the day before, there was absolutely no way he forgot!

“Where is that bug?” She muttered anxiously, furiously typing a message to her partner on her staff, “Did something happen to him?”

“Excuse me, Mademoiselle Noire.” A timid voice interrupted her unfocused train of thought, “May I have a word with you?”

“Yeah… sure…” She said uncertainly, snapping her staff back onto her hip and turning to the new voice, “Hey, you’re the sculptor, right?”

“That’s correct,” He nodded, “I was just wondering-”

“I’m really sorry about Mister Bug not showing up- if that’s what you’re worried about.” She said, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder, hoping to reassure him, “I don’t know where he is. I’ve been trying to contact him the entire time, I swear.”

“I appreciate it, but that’s not actually what I wanted to ask you about. You see, I have this photograph and…”

He paused to pull a newspaper clipping from his blazer pocket that displayed her in an action pose (the same one as the sculpture, she noted.) and held it out to her along with a pen.

“You want an autograph? Of course! If anything, I should be asking for yours.” she gingerly took the pen and paper as to not crease it, “Who am I making this out to?”

“Um, Théo Barbot, madame-”

“Please, call me Kit.”

“...Kit.”

She quickly scribbled down a messy ‘KN’ with a paw print beside it and handed it back to the sculptor.

“Thank you so much.” He said gratefully, “I really admire you, you know. I poured everything I had into making this statue perfect.”

“I can see that. One criticism, I’m actually taller than Mister Bug.”

Théo looked between the statue and the hero a few times, “You are?”

“No. That was a lie to boost my self-confidence.”

“Ah." He paused, turning his head to the statue as if to see if her height was actually fine, then he looked back at her. Kit shuffled her feet, not exactly knowing what to say. Then Théo continued, breaking out of his train of thought, "Uhm... I was wondering if you would like to meet up sometime?”

Kit pursed her lips and tilted her head slightly, “Meet up?”

“Yeah. Like, to get to know each other?”

She froze like a deer caught in headlights. How exactly was she supposed to respond to that?

The sculptor was quick to try and amend the awkwardness his question had caused, “I don’t mean- I’m sorry if that was too forward, I just-”

“Stop. Please.” She shook her head and held up a gloved hand, halting Théo in his tracks, “I’m really sorry, Théo. You seem like a super nice guy, you really do! Honestly, I would love to just hang out with people as a superhero, but I can’t. It’s too dangerous to get involved with a superhero for an extended time. Besides…”

She turned to the statue and sighed longingly at the image of her partner, “I’ve got my eye on someone already.”

Before Théo could formulate a response, Kit’s ring began beeping.

“What the- I haven’t even used my power.” She mumbled, “Um… I’m really sorry, Théo.”

She quickly vaulted away from the awkward situation and back to her room, which happened to only be a few blocks away, and flopped onto her bed, burying her face in the fabric of her many blankets.

“Plagg, what was that all about?” She groaned after taking a good fifteen minutes to mentally process what had just happened, “I thought I had to use Cataclysm to make my time run out on its own.”

“Oh yeah. You do. I just made the ring beep to give you a decent excuse to get the hell out of there. You weren’t actually gonna detransform.”

“Oh… thanks, I guess.”

“You totally froze up.”

“You know what? You’re not being very helpful at the moment. Make yourself useful and turn on the TV or something.”

Plagg rolled his large eyes and began a crude imitation of the girl, but complied regardless, zipping over to the large couch and bumping into the remote.

“Uh… kid?” He confusedly said after a few minutes of flicking through channels, “You might wanna take a look at this…”

Marinette shoved herself into a sitting position and nearly passed out at the sight of her partner on the screen, _stealing the Mona Lisa._

_“And in some astonishing news, there's been a spectacular theft at the Louvre. Amateur video showed without a shadow of a doubt that the thief is none other than the famous hero, Mister Bug.”_ The anchor stated, a nervous edge in her voice.

“Oh my god.” She gaped, blinking at the screen as an image of her partner smiling innocently faded in, “Is that why he ditched me? To steal the Mona Lisa?”

“Sure looks like it.” Plagg nodded.

“But… there’s no way!” She insisted, “Mister Bug would never do something like that!”

“How do you know? You don’t know what he’s like under the mask.”

Her eyes narrowed at the Kwami, who stared back, unfazed, “I know enough.”

**********

Adrien tried his best to smother himself when Alya called back. Nino left a few minutes after her first call, something about ‘answers’ and ‘getting them.’

“What’s up?” He huffed, still a bit finicky about using Marinette’s phone to call anyone.

_“MISTER BUG IS AN ART THIEF!”_

He had to pause for a minute after hearing that, “Excuse me?”

_“A few minutes ago, Mister Bug waltzed into the Louvre and STOLE THE FUCKING MONA LISA!”_

Adrien sent a questioning glance to Tikki, who shrugged nervously.

“Uh, okay. Why are you telling me this?”

_“I just thought I’d let you know. I’m bored. Usually, I call Marinette about this stuff, but you have her phone.”_

“Doesn’t she have mine?”

_“Yeah, but she’s not picking up. I figured the next best thing was calling her phone.”_

“Okay, yeah. Listen, I’m gonna need to call you back-”

_“Cool, I need to use my phone to record anyway. Bye!”_

He gingerly laid the phone down on his desk and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“So I’m an art thief now.” He muttered, shaking his head, “How on earth did I become an art thief?”

“Maybe Hawk Moth akumatized someone to look like you!” Tikki suggested, “It wouldn’t be the craziest thing he’s done.”

“That’s for sure.” Adrien shuddered, recalling M. Pigeon’s attack the week before, “There’s no way people actually believe this, right?”

“Alya sure seemed convinced.”

“Alya jumps to conclusions. A lot. I’m mostly worried about Kit right now.” He paused, shuddering at the thought of his fun-sized partner’s fury, “What do I do if she believes this and attacks me at first sight?”

“Have faith in your partner. You two have a very special bond with each other. I don’t think that she would believe this for even a second!”

Adrien smiled and rubbed the Kwami’s head, “Thanks, Tikki. Come on, I have to stop… myself? Spots on!”

Before his transformation was complete, he was already swinging towards the Louvre. Proving his innocence would be a piece of cake!

**********

Kit had to bite her tongue when she landed at the Louvre, which, by the way, was _extremely painful_ with fangs, to prevent herself from screaming at the nearest cop.

“What the hell is going on here?!” She demanded, storming up to the mayor and jabbing a clawed finger into his face, “You seriously think that Mister Bug would do such a thing?”

“The Bug is behind bars, Mademoiselle Noire.” Sabrina’s father smugly stated as he approached, “He just showed up and walked right into our trap.”

The mayor swallowed thickly, nearly cross-eyed as he stared at her finger, “I-I do apologize, b-but all of the evidence-”

“Let me talk to him.” She ordered, “He’s my partner, after all.”

“We can’t just-”

“I’m speaking to him whether you like it or not. Move. Now.”

**********

“Bugaboy!”

“Kit!” Mister Bug exclaimed, immediately perking up at the sound of his partner’s voice. He quickly jumped up and met her at the bars that kept him on lockdown, “You know I’m innocent, right?”

“Of course I do!” She cooed, gently taking his right hand into her left, “But… it’s not looking too good for you at the moment.”

“What? What’s that supposed to mean?” He frantically asked, “How is it not looking good for me?”

Kit quickly dropped his hand and nervously began twiddling her thumbs together, “You missed the statue unveiling earlier. Everyone was expecting you there.”

Mister Bug lurched back and rubbed his face anxiously, “So it seems like I skipped it to steal the Mona Lisa.”

“...Yeah. That’s not why you missed it... right?”

“Of course not!”

“So why did you? You kind of hung me out to dry.”

He blanked. There wasn’t really a way to explain it without either sounding crazy or stupid.

“...I lost my phone and totally spaced.”

“Seriously?”

“Yep. It’s about as ridiculous as it sounds.”

Kit sent a quick glance over her shoulder before leaning as close as she could get and whispering, “I’m gonna destroy the bars. Get ready to run. I’ll call you when I’m fully recharged.”

“You’re wonderful, My lady.” He murmured, placing a quick kiss upon her hand.

“I know.” She grinned, a slight blush spreading on her face as she summoned her power, “Stand back.”

**********

It took half an hour to lose the police, but Mister Bug was eventually able to find solace under a bridge that crossed the Seine.

“What now?” He asked into his yoyo worriedly, trying his best to avoid touching any more of the uncleaned underbelly of the overpass than he had to, “I have no idea what we’re looking for.”

_“You and me both.”_ Kit shrugged, basking atop of the Eiffel Tower like nothing was going wrong, _“Akumas don’t typically disappear like that.”_

“Do you have any leads? Any at all? Maybe someone’s mad at me for not showing up to the statue unveiling?”

Kit’s face scrunched up for a moment as she thought, before violently blanching as she sat up, _“The sculptor!”_

“Huh?”

_“Oh my god!”_ She hissed, beginning to pace around in her very limited space atop the tower, _“It makes so much sense!”_

Mister Bug pursed his lips and widened his eyes questioningly, “Can I be in the loop?”

Kit grimaced and scratched the side of her head awkwardly, _“I may or may not have said some… things… that may or may not have unintentionally made the sculptor extremely jealous of you.”_

“Oh really? How so?”

Her paleness quickly turned into an intense blush, _“That’s not important.”_

“Really? It sounds like an important part of this conversation.”

_“Okay, maybe it’s important, but I can’t tell you.”_

“Why?”

_“Because I would die of embarrassment.”_

“Oh really? Now I’m intrigued.”

_“Whoa-kay, you know what? You’re in no position to make demands, Flakeybug.”_

“I said I was sorry!”

_“You actually didn’t. Flake.”_

Mister Bug opened his mouth to respond but found himself at the receiving end of Kit’s smug, fanged smirk instead.

_“Flake.”_

“OKAY! I’m sorry! Are you happy?”

_“Yeah. Flake.”_

“YOU-”

_“The name of the sculptor is Théo Barbot. I’m gonna find his workshop. Track my staff and meet me there.”_

**********

“You sure this is the right place?” Mister Bug whispered as he and Kit sneaked across the roof, carefully examining the area below through the skylights. The room appeared empty, but the stolen Mona Lisa stood out like a sore thumb in the corner, propped up against the wall next to some large concept art of the statue from the park.

“Definitely.” Kit hummed, “Isn’t that you? Right there?”

She pointed to the corner, where an exact copy of Mister Bug stood, hunched over a desk.

Anger flared up in the blonde boy’s stomach, “That bastard.”

“Hey. Calm down.” Kit said, placing a hand on his shoulder, “We have the element of surprise. This can be quick if we play it right.”

“I don’t care.”

Before Kit had a chance to protest, Mister Bug threw open the window below him, prompting her to duck down to avoid being seen.

“Identity theft is not a joke, Jim!” He shouted before a red yoyo, identical to his own, shot up through the opening and dragged him inside.

“Damn it!” Kit hissed, leaping through the opening after him. Instead of finding herself by her partner’s side, she was met with a wrestling ball of two identical Mister Bugs.

“Oh… wow.” She muttered, prompting the two to halt their battle and stare at her, “You two look… _exactly_ alike.”

“You seriously can’t tell?” One of them said, offended.

“I’m obviously the real me!” The other exclaimed, shoving the other’s face away.

Kit found herself speechless as the two began attacking each other once more.

“How can you believe that this impostor is me?” Mister Bug #1 growled, socking the other in the gut.

“You think I’M the impostor?” Mister Bug #2 asked incredulously, bringing his knee into the other’s side.

“HOLD ON!” Kit screeched, halting them in their tracks, “You both look exactly the same! If you want me to believe you, you can’t just say that you’re him!”

“So what do you want us to do?”

Kit jogged over to a nearby desk and grabbed a marker, “Okay. Answer me this. What did you get me for my birthday?”

“A scarf!” Mister Bug #2 exclaimed.

Kit slowly nodded, a wicked smirk adorning her face before she abruptly leaped onto Mister Bug #1 and scribbled all over his face.

“Oh, GOD! The impostor grimaced, roughly shoving her off of him and rubbing his face to remove the marks, only succeeding in smearing the ink, “What the HELL?!”

“Now I know who’s who.” she shrugged, “Nothing personal.”

“You drew on my face!”

“Technically, it’s not _your_ face.”

As Mister Bug returned to Kit’s side, the copy began slowly approaching as well, a desperate gleam in his eye as he spoke, “Kit Noire, Please! You told me you loved Mister Bug, and now I am him!”

The girl had to turn away from her partner to prevent him from seeing the furious blush that began taking over her pale cheeks.

“Besides,” The impostor gloated, “I’m so much better than that… _insect._ ”

“You’re not Mister Bug.” She hissed, fury quickly boiling over her embarrassment, “You’ll _never_ be Mister Bug.”

“Come on, little kitty.” He purred, “Why not?”

Mister Bug felt a strange satisfaction when Kit’s small, yet powerful fist connected with what looked like his own face, and it just got better when blood began dripping from his injured nose, mixing with the maelstrom of marker trails.

“How’s that for _little._ ” She sneered as the impostor roughly wiped some blood from his face.

“You know what?” He huffed, inhaling deeply through his nose to clear it of liquid, “I’ve had just about enough of this! Lucky Charm!”

Instead of a normal Lucky Charm, such as a roll of cloth or a pair of glasses, a large mallet fell into his hands.

“Oh man…” Mister Bug winced, “Hey Kit, do you mind cataclysming that thing?”

“You bet.” She nodded, barely dodging a swing from the hammer by riding her weapon up to the rafters, “Hey, Impostor-Bug! How does it feel to get your ass kicked by someone fifteen centimeters shorter than you!”

The Akuma raised an eyebrow momentarily before Kit dropped down like a rock and kicked the back of his head, sending him face first into the floor.

“That’s it!” he exploded, taking a wild swing with the hammer at Kit’s midsection, only for it to shatter into ashes upon colliding with her hand.

“Look!” She chuckled, jumping into the air to avoid a sweep kick and latching onto the rafters once again, “He gets reckless when he gets mad, just like you!” 

Mister Bug scowled as he silently summoned his own lucky charm, a bucket of black paint.

“Paint?” The impostor scoffed, “You think that paint will stop-”

Mister Bug rolled his eyes and without having to think twice, threw the entire gallon of paint onto his copy.

“Your Lucky Charms always confuse me.” Kit said, dropping down as the villain continued to slip on the puddle of paint he was standing in, eventually giving up and just lying on the floor in defeat.

“It worked, didn't it?” He shrugged, “Come on, we need to find his akumatized object.”

It took a few minutes of searching through the paint, but they were eventually able to find a newspaper clipping, the one that Kit remembered autographing at the statue unveiling earlier.

“It’s definitely the sculptor.” Kit confirmed as Mister Bug tore the paper in half and purified the butterfly.

“You wanna explain what he meant when he said that you told him you were in love with me?” He said, taking what was left of his lucky charm to summon his secondary power.

Kit nearly collapsed as all of the air in her lungs seemed to suddenly leave her, “I, uh… I meant it l-like… friend love? I didn’t mean that I was in love with you if that’s what you were wondering! I’M SORRY! I NEED TO LEAVE!”

As she disappeared through the open skylight, Mister Bug turned back to the sculptor, who was rubbing his head from a defeated position on the floor. 

_Thank god for the miraculous ladybugs._ He thought, kneeling beside the healed and cleaned boy, “You’re Théo, right?”

“Urgh… Mister Bug?” He confusedly asked, “What happened?”

“You were akumatized.” He said, gently helping him to his feet, “Believe it or not, you turned into _me._ ” He paused, “And stole the Mona Lisa, I guess.”

Théo tiredly pinched the bridge of his nose, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s no big deal, seriously. It happens to a lot of people. I’m really sorry that I missed the unveiling earlier, by the way. I ran into some personal issues and completely forgot. Don’t worry, Kit made sure to chew me out before we came after you.”

The sculptor chuckled slightly, “I believe it. And… I think you should give her a chance, by the way. I’m rooting for you two.”

“Kit? A chance to what?”

“Oh my god, you don’t know.”

Before he had a chance to dig into it any more, his earrings began frantically beeping, letting him know that he only had a minute before he transformed back. He left the art workshop a very confused bug.

**********

The next morning, Adrien made it his personal mission to return Marinette’s phone as quickly as possible. While he knew it was insane to think a hitman would come after him for a misplaced phone, he didn’t want to take any risks with M. Agreste.

“Marinette!” He exclaimed as she stepped out of her car, sending a small wave to the driver as he sped off, “I’m so sorry about what happened yesterday!”

He held out the device like an offering to a goddess, which she eagerly accepted.

“It’s really no big deal.” She said, reaching into her bag and rustling around, “Here, I’ve got yours too.”

She produced his own phone from the purse, which he took, albeit slightly slower than she had grabbed her’s.

“Do you have any idea how we even switched phones?” Adrien asked after a few moments of silence, “It just doesn’t make any sense.”

The blue-eyed girl shrugged, “Maybe we accidentally took each other’s phone during lunch? That’s the only time I remember using it before I figured out they were switched.”

“Maybe… Hey, on the topic of lunch, would you maybe want to… come to the bakery later? For lunch?”

Marinette smiled gently and nodded, “That sounds nice.”

As the two teens continued their conversation, Alya and Nino looked on from the summit of the stairs, the former excitedly giggling as she watched the interaction from afar.

“Yes!” She squealed, doing a small fist pump that prompted Nino to turn to her in confusion.

“I get the feeling that you had something to do with this whole situation.” He deadpanned, to which she swiftly nodded.

“I had _everything_ to do with this situation.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary: Theo gets jealous of Mister Bug, turns into Mister Bug, gets beat up by Mister Bug (and Kit Noire), and becomes a Misternoire shipper.


	7. Timebreaker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd just like to say how much I love reading comments. It lets me know how you, as the audience, feel about my writing, which, by the way, is an amazing motivator. Thank you all for your kind words.
> 
> Thanks to Mirror_Face once again for beta reading!

Adrien loved his parents with all his heart, but, at the moment, he was becoming just about sick of them. He had to be at the Trocadéro soon to watch a bet between Alix and Kim, and his parents _would not stop talking._

“Adrien, what do you think?” His mother, Emilie, asked worriedly as she placed a flower in her hair, only to remove it a few moments later and repeat the process a few times, “With or without? Which looks better?”

“With, for sure.” He said, intentionally trying to sound as confident as possible so she would _stop asking._

“Are you sure it isn’t better without?”

“Mom, seriously, you look perfect either way.”

“Adrien!” A third voice boomed from the front of the bakery, prompting the blonde boy to dash away from his panicking mother.

“Yeah, dad?” He questioned as his father turned around to reveal...

“What do you think?” He asked, gesturing to his face.

Adrien blinked once, twice, “What am I supposed to be seeing?”

“My mustache!” Tom exclaimed, “I groomed it!”

“Oh! It… looks great!”

“Are you sure it isn’t too short? Should I shave it off? Maybe it’s crooked-”

“Dad, you look great. Maybe you should take off your apron, though.”

The mountain of a man yelped at the sight of the dirty apron he wore and quickly began shuffling away, “Thanks, son!”

Adrien rolled his eyes affectionately as they rustled around the house for a few minutes before eventually making their way out of their seperate rooms, his mother with the flower in her hair ( _look at that, she actually listened_ ) and his father in a sky-blue t-shirt.

_Just like Kit’s eyes…_ he sighed inwardly, wishing he was out swinging around the city instead of having to deal with his parents.

“Are you sure we look okay?” Tom asked, “It’s a fairly fancy restaurant.”

“Trust me, you both look amazing.” Adrien assured, though he wasn’t really paying attention. He’d been telling them that for the past ten minutes, “Just go before you change your minds again.”

“You’re right.” His father sighed as Adrien started to steer them out the door, “Bye, Adrien!”

Adrien waved hurriedly until his parents finally disappeared from sight, before holding open his hoodie pocket for Tikki to fly out.

“How amazing is it?” The Kwami asked, buzzing around her holder’s head, “Twenty years of marriage!”

“It’s pretty cool.” He shrugged, “Though it’s a little less cool when they’re badgering you for fashion advice.”

“I think it was adorable, wanting to appear perfect for your anniversary!”

Adrien smiled softly at the tiny creature as he slid past the counter and sneakily snatched a cookie for Tikki, “I guess that’s true. Come on, we don’t want to be late for Kim and Alix’s race!”

**********

“You’d think that father would learn.” Marinette said smugly as she landed stealthily at the Trocadéro and detransformed, a banner firmly clasped within her hands, “Telling me ‘no’ is useless.”

“I admire how dedicated you are to not listen to your dad.” Plagg said as he floated into the girl’s purse to eat, fitting in snuggly.

“Well… my friends are counting on me!” She exclaimed, unrolling the banner slightly to reveal a cartoony picture of Kim’s face, “What kind of friend would I be if I let them down?”

“One who has a really strict dad.”

“Okay, sure, that’s a valid excuse. But I _really_ did want to come!”

She quickly zipped her purse shut over the kwami and rushed out onto the stairs, trying her best to not let the banner unfurl as she ran.

“Hey girl!” Alya shouted from the crowd at the bottom of the stairs as Marinette stumbled on the last step, “Glad you could make it!”

“Could someone help me hold this?” She groaned as the banner began unrolling.

“I got it!” Nino exclaimed, picking up the other end of the fabric and pulling it taut to reveal an image of Kim above a tennis shoe and Alix above a rollerblade. Marinette had a hard time suppressing her blush as her classmates began praising her work.

“Thanks, guys.” She smiled, scanning the group for familiar faces, “Hey… where’s Alix?”

“Right here!”

The pink-haired girl slid in on her rollerblades, skidding to a stop beside Kim, who was stretching right next to the track .

“You’re all on the wrong team!” He announced, “There’s _no way_ Alix could beat an extreme athlete like me!”

“I’m gonna totally destroy you!” Alix taunted, prompting the majority, if not all of the crowd, to cheer alongside her.

“You don’t stand a chance!”

“Why’s that?”

“My finger alone has more muscles than your entire body!”

“Is that why you’re such a meathead?”

Before the competitors could tear into each other any more, Max rushed forwards and shoved them apart.

“Let’s review the official rules.” He said, readjusting his glasses, “Two laps around the fountains; approximately 500 yards. The first one over the line will be declared the victor! If Kim triumphs, Alix will relinquish her rollerblades to him. If Alix triumphs, Kim will be prohibited from making another dare for the rest of the year.”

“KICK HIS ASS!” Adrien bellowed, punching into the air, quickly followed by the rest of the class.

“We’re sick of those stupid dares!” Juleka exclaimed.

“No more dares!” Ivan shouted.

Max held up a hand to silence them, “We will begin on the count of three! One! Two-”

“Wait up!”

Kim immediately fell on his face.

Alix rolled over to the crowd and pulled a fancy-looking stopwatch from her pocket and held it out to Alya, who lowered her phone in confusion.

“It’s a family heirloom. Protect it with your _life_.” The rollerblading girl said, narrowing her eyes considerably.

“Alix, I can’t! I’m recording-”

“Okay. ADRIEN!”

The blonde boy leaped nearly two feet straight in the air at the sound of his own name, “Why are you singling me out?!”

“You’re not doing anything.”

“Neither are… most of the people here!”

“Dude, can you just hold my watch?”

Before he even had a chance to respond, the watch was in his hands and Alix was back at the starting line.

“Are you ready?” Max asked, holding out his hands to block the racers from moving, “One, two, three, GO!”

Adrien moved his focus to the watch as soon as Alix and Kim took off. He could understand why Alix wanted it kept safe, the silver metal was very ornate and intricately detailed. He almost had a hard time believing it could have been a family heirloom- it looked almost brand new.

**********

While Marinette didn’t mind holding the banner, she would have preferred someone other than Nino to carry the other end. He was getting _way_ too into the race. So much so, that when Alix finished the first lap ahead of Kim, he accidentally pushed her forward, almost making her fall onto the ground. She would have fallen flat on her face if not for Adrien’s arms wrapping catching her waist.

“You good?” He asked worriedly, lifting her back to her feet.

“Can you hold the banner please?” She grumbled, “I think you’re more equipped to deal with Nino’s excitement.”

“Sure.” He shrugged, “You’ll have to hold Alix’s watch, though.”

As she took the watch from his hands, their fingers brushed together, prompting the blonde boy to blush furiously, though Marinette didn’t pay it any mind, instantly distracted by the watch being snatched from her hands by the perfectly manicured claws of Chloé.

“Oooh, what’s this?” She had asked.

Marinette took in a deep breath and held out a hand expectantly, “Chloé, give it back. It’s Alix’s.”

“Why?” The blonde girl scoffed, “It’s not like anything Alix owns is worth that much.”

Before Marinette had a chance to reprimand the mayor’s daughter, she squeezed the button to open the watch. To both of the girl’s surprise, a blindingly bright light began shining from inside, prompting Chloé to toss the watch into the air with a loud squeal, causing it to land right on the track. Marinette could only look on in horror as Alix zoomed past, right over her own watch, pulverizing it completely.

“Oh my god!” She squeaked, shoving through the now silent crowd that had most definitely seen the destruction of the device, “Alix, I’m so sorry!”

“What for?” The skater asked, spinning around from her victory pose, only to let out a cry of dread at the sight of the shattered watch.

“What happened?” She demanded, kneeling to try to pick up the broken pieces.

“I-I-” Marinette stuttered, unable to say anything with her tied tongue and suddenly dry mouth.

“Chloé was the one who dropped it.” Adrien said, rushing forward to save his princess, “I gave it to Marinette in exchange for holding the banner, and Chloé took it from her.”

“I told YOU to hold it!” she bristled, shoving a finger into Adrien’s chest.

“It was an accident!” He insisted, trying to place a comforting hand on her shoulder only for it to be shrugged off, “We didn’t mean for this to happen!”

“PSH!” Chloé said, rolling her eyes, “As if I had anything to do with this!”

Marinette sent a withering glare to the blonde girl as Alix angrily skated away.

“Is anyone gonna go after her?” Rose asked after a few moments of silence. That seemed to shock Marinette out of her stupor, as she began chasing down the pink-haired girl as fast as she could run.

“Alix! Wait!” She called, “There has to be a way we can fix it! I-I can ask my father, he probably knows someone!”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Alix sighed, “You probably got everything you ever asked for, nothing of any sentimental value.”

Marinette’s hand subconsciously drifted to the ring on her right hand as her face flushed in embarrassment, “I was just trying to be nice.”

“You got it, Hawk Moth.”

“...Excuse me?”

**********

Adrien had never wanted to wring Chloé’s neck more in his entire life.

“What the hell is your problem?” He hissed as Marinette followed Alix to the other side of the Trocadéro, “Why are you so insistent on being _literally_ the worst?”

“Puh-lease!” Chloé groaned loudly, shoving a finger into Adrien’s face as she spoke, “You’re just trying to shove the blame onto me because it’s obviously _your_ fault!”

“Believe what you want, bitch.” He huffed, turning away from her angrily, “I’m gonna go after Alix.”

He moved to chase the girl, but before he could take a single step, a sudden, strangled shout sounded from nearby, drawing his attention to Kim.

He was frozen, and he was fading away.

“HAHAHAHA!” An evil laugh, one that most definitely matched that of Alix, echoed throughout the Trocadéro as a woman in green dashed around and touched people, freezing them just like Kim.

“I need to transform, NOW!” Adrien gasped, ducking behind a wall to summon his transformation, “Tikki, spots on!”

**********

Marinette couldn’t decide if being three feet from an Akuma being formed was extremely lucky or extremely horrible.

“Alix, what are you doing?!” She exclaimed, barely ducking beneath the villain’s hand, “What did you do to Kim?!”

“I’m not Alix anymore!” The villain said as she dashed past, “I’m Timebreaker, and I needed his energy to go back in time and save my watch!”

Marinette yelped as Timebreaker lunged forwards to grab her shoulder, but before she was able to make contact, a red yoyo wrapped itself around the Akuma’s wrist and pulled her to the ground.

“Marinette! MOVE!” Mister Bug called, pulling on his weapon to try and keep the villain subdued long enough for her to escape. She wasted no time diving behind a nearby tree and transforming.

“You’re late.” Mister Bug chided as she dropped in, “I assume you know not to let her touch you.”

“Not everyone can be as punctual as you.” she shrugged, rolling her eyes, “And yeah. I know. The more people she touches, the farther back in time she can go.”

Her partner suddenly yelped, nearly falling on his face as Timebreaker took off once more, touching Rose, then Mylène, then Nathanial.

“Just a few more!” She exclaimed, jumping towards Ivan as he tried to hide behind a shrub that was much too small to use as cover. Just as her hand was about to make contact, Kit’s staff struck her back and sent her to land roughly on the ground. To her surprise, instead of the villain being subdued, she twisted around, grabbed the staff with both hands, and swung it with all her might.

“Fuc-UGH!” Kit wheezed as her back slammed into a light pole, sending her sprawling to the ground, breathless.

Mister Bug watched in horror as the villain loomed over the crumpled form of his partner, and made a choice-how good of a choice it was never crossing his mind. All that mattered was that his partner wasn’t the one who disappeared.

“I wonder how much energy the cat has?” Timebreaker said, bringing her hand down in a violent arch. All Kit could do was close her eyes and wait for the impact.

But it never came.

“...Bugaboy?” She whispered as his arms wrapped around her lithe frame tightly, his yoyo pressed tightly against her stomach. He gave no response.

“Whoa! Six minutes in one shot!” The villain joyfully exclaimed as a meter on her skates filled to the brim, “He sure had a lot of energy!”

Kit let out a strangled cry as her partner began disappearing before her eyes, unable to form any coherent words as she desperately clawed at his fading form.

“Move it, cat.” Timebreaker sneered, reaching for Mister Bug’s fading miraculous, “I need those earrings.”

Before she was able to get too close, Kit extended her staff and sent the villain flying.

“ _Fuck off._ ” She hissed, taking Mister Bug’s yoyo from his disappearing hand, “You’re never getting your hands on his miraculous.”

Timebreaker groaned indignantly, “Whatever. I don’t even need this. I’ll just go back to a time when his miraculous is still there!”

As she took off, a bright flame appearing at her feet like she was charging up her power, “See you earlier!”

“Don’t even THINK about it!” Kit seethed, throwing her partner’s yoyo at the speeding villain. To her surprise, it successfully wrapped itself around Timebreaker’s waist. Unfortunately, it did absolutely nothing to slow her down, and instead Kit began sliding behind her like a dogsled. The Akuma continued to gain speed, dragging both of them to the upper level of the Trocadéro as the flame grew in front of her until it exploded outwards. And suddenly, Kit was falling.

Until she brutally crashed into concrete, that is.

“Fffuck.” She swore, peeling her face off of the ground, “What in the world just happened?”

“Oooh, what’s this?”

“Chloé, give it back. It’s Alix’s.”

Kit recognized the conversation all too well. It was the exact one she had with Chloé just before Alix’s watch was destroyed.

_Not again._ She silently vowed as Timebreaker dropped down and screamed, “MY WATCH!”

“Chloé! Put the watch down!”

Instead of placing it on the ground gently like Kit hoped, Chloé wildly flailed her arms and launched the watch into the air. Everyone could do nothing but watch in awe as it collided with the ground and exploded.

_WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!_

“Everyone, run! Don’t let her touch you!” Kit ordered, beginning to hoist herself over the railing to once again fight with Timebreaker, but she froze when an extremely familiar voice angrily cut her off.

“Who the hell are _you_?”

She slowly turned from the dropoff and found herself staring into her own eyes.

“Oh god, I don’t have time for this right now.” she nervously said, moving to Marinette’s side and placing a hand on her shoulder, “I’m you from a few minutes in the future!”

“She’s right, kid.” Plagg’s muffled and nasally voice said from within Marinette’s purse as she approached her masked copy, “She’s you. I can feel it.”

“Trippy.” Marinette blinked, rubbing her eyes a few times as if to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating, “But… how?”

Kit nervously peeked over the ledge again. To her horror, Timebreaker was helping an exact copy of herself up to her feet.

“Damn it. There’s two of them now...” She said, voice starting to shake anxiously, “I don’t really have any time to explain right now, but whatever you do, don’t let either of them touch you!”

Kit watched as Marinette gave a determined nod as she ran off and found a place to hide before turning and leaping into battle.

**********

The first thing that crossed Adrien’s mind when Kit appeared with an Akuma was something along the lines of ‘Why didn’t you call?’

He decided it probably wasn’t the best thing to point out at the moment though. When Kit had found out about that villain the night before Stormy Weather, _whoo boy_ that had been a mess. ‘Why didn’t you call’ wasn’t even a fraction of what she had to say to him that day.

“Hope I’m not too late!” He called, dropping in next to his partner as she tripped one of the identical villains, “What’s the situation?”

He paused at the sight of her typically bright, now dull blue eyes. It was hard to notice in the chaos, but they seemed almost moist.

“...Kit?”

“Don’t.” She cut him off, frantically shaking her head as he moved to place a hand on her shoulder, “Not right now.”

“What?”

“ _Please don’t._ ” She whined desperately, “We’ll talk after we win. Don’t let either of them touch you. Your life depends on it.”

_All the more reason to win, I guess._ He thought as she placed a circular object in his hands before dashing away, ducking beneath one of the villain’s hands and violently flipping them into the air with her staff. He looked down to see what she had given him, and to his surprise, it was an exact replica of his yoyo.

“Bugaboy!” Her voice echoed from behind him, “What are you doing? Stop standing there and get to work!”

He opened his mouth to respond but found himself utterly speechless when a second Kit Noire, indistinguishable from the first, landed at his side.

“You must be confused.” She said, shrugging as he nodded, “Honestly, same. Apparently, she’s me from a few minutes in the future.”

“ _What._ ”

“I know. Crazy, right?”

He looked back and forth between the two for a few moments, “And we’re sure this isn’t another Impostor-Bug situation?”

She nodded, “Yep. Plagg said he could ‘feel it’, whatever that means.”

“GUYS!” The future Kit screamed, barely holding back both Timebreakers with her staff, “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!”

“Sorry!” They simultaneously yelped, diving into action to assist their struggling ally.

**********

Mister Bug quickly discovered that it was really difficult to try and fight someone you couldn’t touch. He was almost thankful for their quick departure a few minutes into the battle until they immediately started absorbing the life-energy of innocent bystanders.

“They’re trying to go back in time again!” Future Kit hissed as they began making a lap around the Trocadéro, “We can’t let that happen.”

Mister Bug nodded as her steely eyes landed upon his yoyo, “Lucky charm!”

Though he only tossed one yoyo into the air, the second one activated on his waist at the sound of the words. After a few seconds, a large bag of gravel and a pair of scissors landed at his feet.

“...Are those scissors for cutting open the bag?” Present Kit snorted.

“Looks like it.” He shrugged. “I’ve never used two lucky charms before.”

“I could have cut it open with my claws.”

“Or your fangs.”

“Gross. I don’t know where your lucky charms have been. I’m not putting them in my mouth.”

“...Did you seriously just say that?”

“...Yep. That sounded extremely weird and I apologize.”

Mister Bug pursed his lips and averted his gaze from his partner as he began cutting the bag open, “Uhm… do either of you happen to skate?”

“I’m really good at ice skating!” Present Kit excitedly cut in, pausing to high five her future self, “Sorry, _we’re_ really good at ice skating.”

“That’s cool but not what I was looking for.” He muttered, thinking back to his experiences on a skateboard, “You know that if a rock gets caught under a skate’s wheel, it’ll throw it off balance, right?”

“Well, duh. Who doesn’t know that?”

He rolled his eyes and began laying a strip of gravel along the track they stood on, “Get ready to destroy their skates, then. More specifically, the one with the power meter on it.”

The two Kits nodded and summoned their Cataclysms as the two Timebreakers flew around the last corner of the track at a much higher speed than before. 

“Their energy will be enough to send us back!” One of the villains shouted over the wind, reaching their hand out. Before the second had an opportunity to follow, they were abruptly sent to the ground as they rolled over Mister Bug’s trap.

“Nicely done.” He said, doing a golf clap as his partners cataclysmed the skates that contained the butterflies. He quickly captured both of them and started the purification process.

“Miraculous Mister Bug!” He shouted. To his side, the two Alixes were fused back into a singular Alix, who gasped in delight at the sight of her watch as the miraculous ladybugs repaired it, almost as if Chloé hadn’t launched it into the sky.

“My watch! That’s so cool.” She marveled, picking it up, “Thank you so much! I shouldn’t have given it to someone else to look after. It won’t happen again.”

He nodded sagely as she began running off, “Responsibility isn’t something to be taken lightly.”

He turned back to his partner, still puzzled by the drastic difference between future and present Kit, and couldn’t help but laugh as they reformed into one while fist-bumping, leaving one extremely confused Kit with her fist held out.

“Pound it.” He said softly, meeting her gesture with his own. Instead of an enthusiastic and sly smile, she immediately tackled him and began sobbing vehemently into his side, much to his confusion.

“I-I thought I l-lost y-y-you!” She sniffled as he brought her into a gentle embrace, “Don’t ever sacrifice yourself for m-me again!”

“...What did I do?”

Her cries quickly diminished to whimpers, though she kept an iron grip onto him as if letting go would cause him to disappear again, “Timebreaker had me. You jumped in and got erased instead of me.”

“That’s why you had my yoyo?”

She nodded softly as he wiped a tear from her mask, “Yeah. You put it in my hands just before she got you.”

“I suppose I had a plan, then.”

“It doesn’t make sense, though. You’re the only one who can purify the Akumas. You’re the only one who can fix the damage caused. If I hadn’t come back with Timebreaker, there was nothing I could have done.”

He gently smiled, ignoring the beeps from his earrings that signaled his three-minute warning, “Well, clearly I trusted you enough to get the job done. And I was right to do so- I mean, look where that got us?”

For the next two minutes, he rubbed comforting circles into her back as they sat in silence.

“I apologize, my lady, but I believe my time is up.” He said, standing and stretching as his earrings beeped for the fourth time, “If you need to talk, don’t hesitate to call.”

**********

Marinette barely had enough time to find a safe wall to hide behind after her partner left, let alone return home like she’d hoped.

“What. A. Day.” Plagg yawned, landing in her hands as the suit dematerialized from her body, “You gonna be alright?”

The girl gingerly wiped her eyes clean of tears and sniffled as she nodded, “Yeah. I’ll be okay.”

Suddenly, her phone began ringing loudly from within her purse. Plagg took it upon himself to cackle wildly as she brought the device from the bag, Nathalie’s name proudly displaying itself on the screen.

“You won’t be for long!” He roared, flopping into the purse in the phone’s place as she answered.

“Hey, Nathalie.” She said slowly.

_“Marinette, where are you?”_

“I’m at the Trocadéro. I’m actually really glad you called.” She paused to let out a watery breath she didn’t know she’d been holding in, “Could you come get me? Please?”

_“I will send your bodyguard in a moment. Is something wrong?”_

“There was an Akuma attack. Some of my friends were… killed. They’re back now, but it just...” She lied smoothly, though her sniffles were indeed very real.

_“I see.”_ Marinette could almost hear the stiff nod that Nathalie most definitely gave, _“Your bodyguard is on the way. Stay where you are.”_

“Thank you.”

_“One more thing, Marinette.”_

“Yes?”

_“Your father says you’re grounded.”_

“...I figured as much.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thomas, boi, there's no way you're telling me that after Ladybug watched Chat Noir disappear from existence and defend his dead body, that she doesn't completely break down, or at the very least be like 'thank god hes alive' and hug him when she sees him alive.
> 
> Oh wait, that's exactly what you're telling me.


	8. The Pharaoh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No joke, I rewrote the first few paragraphs of this chapter like seven times, mostly switching back and forth between two ideas, neither of which made it into the final draft.
> 
> Big thanks to Le-Magikarp1 for beta reading!

Adrien messed up _big time._

He made it a point to check Alya’s blog every day, sometimes every other day if he just wasn’t feeling it, just to be sure she wasn’t too close to figuring out his or Kit’s identity. The only reason he found it to be an issue was that Alya’s mission statement was ‘I will figure out who Mister Bug and Kit Noire are even if it kills me.’

He nearly had a heart attack when he opened the website for his daily check. A few seconds into the most recent video, posted the day before around noon, his superhero form swung by on the bottom of a helicopter and _dropped his fucking history textbook._ Alya, being the self-proclaimed ‘best amateur reporter in Paris’ that she is, immediately went to investigate the evidence and held it up for the entire viewing world to see.

If Kit ever saw this, he would never hear the end of it.

“Tikki!” He moaned into his hands, shoving his chair as far away from the desk as it would go as the computer froze on an image of his textbook, “I messed up! Really bad!”

“Calm down, Adrien.” The kwami insisted, “Besides, what’s done is done. There’s no use freaking out over it.”

“You know how Alya is!” He exclaimed, wildly gesturing at the frozen image of his textbook on his computer, “Any path is a warpath for her, especially when it comes to Kit and I. Freaking out feels totally justified.”

Tikki nodded wisely, “I do know. And while, yes, it may feel justified, you aren’t _entirely_ doomed.”

“The way you say that makes it sound like I’m still partially doomed.”

The Kwami giggled lightly as Adrien slumped back into his chair and tried to melt into himself, “Maybe if you don’t do anything to fix the situation. Come back over here, I may have a solution.”

Adrien grumbled and kicked himself back to the desk as Tikki began typing something, an action that looked like it was way too much work for her since she had to fly to each individual key.

“Tadaa!” She exclaimed, holding her tiny paws out as a website for the Tutankhamun exhibit at the Louvre.

“...How does king Tut have anything to do with this?” He asked, unimpressed.

“You have to get her to go with you to the exhibit. Tell her you found something about Mister Bug!”

“...Why?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“Why are you like this?”

“It’s entertaining!”

**********

To Adrien’s surprise, Alya was surprisingly willing to follow him to the Louvre. To his irritation, all she would talk about the whole way was the textbook.

“Can you believe it?” She exclaimed as they moved down a spiraling staircase in the museum, “All I have to do is find out who this history book belongs to and BLAM, I figure out Mister Bug’s true identity!”

Adrien grumbled under his breath as they entered the Tutankhamun exhibit, pausing at the bottom of the stairs, “You really think you can figure it out because of a textbook? Doesn’t every high school student own one?”

The wicked grin that overtook her face wasn’t comforting in the slightest, “Yeah. I do. You know why?”

Adrien could only hope she wouldn’t notice his increasingly pale cheeks, “Why?”

“Because _our_ school is the only one that uses that book!”

Adrien would swear for several days that he cracked a tooth from how hard he clenched his jaw, “That’s… convenient!”

“No joke! So, my plan is to question every boy in the tenth grade and figure out which ones lost their history textbook last week!”

“How many is that?”

“Forty-two!”

_FUCK. That’s a REALLY SMALL AMOUNT._

“Forty-one, not counting me?” He feebly tried to defend himself.

“PSH!” Alya snorted, “You didn’t have your textbook in class yesterday, man. That’s a big red light.”

“Yeah, but... You seriously think I might be Mister Bug?”

Alya narrowed her eyes considerably as she scanned him up and down, “Nah. Mister Bug is way hotter than you.”

“Hey!”

“I’m just yanking your chain, man. It is true, though. You’re cute. Like a kitten or something. Mister Bug is _fine._ ”

Before Adrien had a chance to complain any more, a lanky man shoved past them, dropping a folder full of papers and a pendant as he ran. He let out a cry of alarm and dove after the jewelry, sighing in relief upon inspection.

“Hey!” Alya exclaimed as she stumbled back, “What the hell?!”

“It’s not broken!” He sighed before turning to Alya, “I’m so sorry. Hey, you're in the same grade as Alix, right?”

Alya blinked a few times before nodding.

“I'm her older brother, Jalil Kubdel.”

“Ah.”

“So, you’re into Tutankhamun too?”

Before she even had a chance to respond, he perked up and ran back past them, exclaiming “Dad!” as he moved.

“Well fuck you too, buddy.” Adrien muttered, returning to Alya’s side.

“...Weird.” Alya huffed before turning back to Adrien, “So, this exhibit has something to do with Mister Bug? Seriously?”

Adrien nervously glanced at the pocket of his jacket, where Tikki was frantically pointing at a papyrus hanging on the wall opposite of them.

“Over there.” He said cooly, internally trying not to scream.

**********

Up until a few minutes ago, Marinette had considered Mister Bug the ‘responsible’ half of their team. That opinion had been wavering ever since he decided to sacrifice himself for her last week, but the straw that broke the camel’s back was when she decided to check Alya’s blog and found herself watching her partner drop his history textbook right in front of her, quite possibly the most relentless ‘Mister Bug and Kit Noire’ fan there is.

“Plagg!” She said through a fit of giggles as she flopped onto her bed, “Have you seen this?”

“Don’t know, don’t care.” He huffed from somewhere across the room.

For the first time since she became a superhero, Marinette found herself hoping for a supervillain, just so she could make fun of her partner.

She was never letting him hear the end of this.

**********

Adrien wanted to scream. The papyrus that Tikki had directed him to wasn’t small by any means, and a good 70% of it was covered in hieroglyphics that he had no idea how to decipher.

“Come on, man!” Alya groaned after the first five minutes. “Just tell me what it is!”

“No, no, I can’t do that!” He insisted, “It’s a surprise! I just… can’t find it.”

“Why?”

He slowly and deliberately turned to Alya, eyebrows furrowed in false fury, “I’m sorry, can you read hieroglyphics? No? That’s what I thought.”

Alya chuckled at his faux-anger and playfully batted at his face, “Okay, I get it. Can _you_ read hieroglyphics?”

Before Adrien had a chance to respond, the spindly man who had shoved past them earlier approached from behind with his father.

“I'm telling you, father, it's right there in the hieroglyphics.” As he walked past, he rudely pushed Adrien to the side to make room for himself, “Excuse me. There, as you know, the one with the scepter is Tutankhamun, the first. And there, opposite is Nefertiti, his princess. There are exactly one hundred mummies beside them. She died several years before him, and the sun god Ra took her as his goddess.”

The older man at his side appeared disinterested as he spoke, “Yes, I know all that. I'm the director of this exhibition, remember?”

“Then you also know that Tutankhamun wanted to bring his princess back to life, by offering the sun god a new wife. This seemed to illustrate the ritual he devised. Nobody has ever fully deciphered the hieroglyphics, but I have! It's a magic chant that needs to be recited in order to complete the ritual! I'm sure of it!”

“Crazy.” Adrien whispered, spinning a finger beside his head as he dragged Alya a few steps back.

“Jalil, these types of frescoes are almost always the illustration for a legend.” The director huffed, anger seeping into his aloof tone, “They called it a legend for a reason…”

Jalil’s face scrunched up slightly and he began fidgeting anxiously, “That's what everyone thinks. But I know it's real. I can prove it! I just need to get my hands on Tutankhamun's scepter and recite the spell!”

The room seemed to drop a few degrees in temperature as M. Kubdel’s nostrils flared, “Are you serious?” He asked incredulously, “Don't even think of touching that scepter. I'd lose my job on the spot. It's a priceless historical object! Not a toy!”

“Come on, dad!” Jalil urged, “We have to try out the spell! What if Tutankhamun had found out how to bring people back to life?”

“Listen, Jalil! That's enough!” He snapped, “Get your head out of those papyrus scrolls and focus on the real world! This one!”

Despite the outlandish claims Jalil was making, Adrien couldn’t help but feel bad for him as he dropped his folders and slumped his head. He almost looked like he was going to _cry_.

**********

Soon enough, Adrien wanted to cry too. Another five minutes had passed, and he still had no idea what he was looking for. He’d gone over the entire document three times and as far as he could tell, there was nothing even remotely related to Mister Bug on the papyrus.

“Dude, this is BORING.” Alya groaned as he began his fourth sweep, “Are you absolutely sure there’s something on it? My eyes hurt!”

“I swear it’s here somewhere…” He insisted, sending a silent glare to Tikki who innocently shrugged from the inside of his jacket, “Just look… huh?”

He paused. In the corner of his vision, a colossal form waltzed into the exhibit.

“Akuma!” Alya screeched, quickly whipping out her phone to record. True to her words, a man who was most definitely an Akuma was standing in the entrance hall. He gave off an imposing aura, massive and muscular with pitch black skin and a golden shendyt around his waist. His head resembled that of an egyptian funerary mask, glowing blue eyes and a false beard.

“Thoth, give me time!” He boomed, the mask morphing to that of a baboon as he began trapping the museum employees in golden bubbles that appeared to slow time for those inside.

“Alya, hide!” He hissed, turning to his right. To his surprise, the girl was no longer beside him. She had dashed across the room to a better vantage point, leaving Adrien behind the very small stand that held up the scepter of Tutankhamun.

“Ah, damn it.” He cursed, stealthily rolling to another display as the villain waved his hand, bringing the scepter and the papyrus to hover beside him. As soon as the scepter left it’s stand, steel bars slammed down at the entrance of the exhibit, trapping them.

“Time to transform, Tikki.” He whispered, “Spots on!”

**********

Marinette had only intended to watch the video of Mister Bug dropping his textbook again (Don’t judge, it made her laugh) when she opened Alya’s blog, but instead found her best friend live-streaming, something normally only done when a supervillain was attacking.

“What am I looking at?” She asked confusedly, rubbing her eyes as the akuma effortlessly trapped the employees of the museum inside bubbles.

“Looks like a pharaoh.” Plagg said from her shoulder, “Believe me, I was there when they were a big thing. The face changing is new. Wonder when they added that?”

“Time to transform?”

The kwami sighed, “Let’s get this over with.”

“Claws out!”

**********

Mister Bug found out the hard way that the Pharaoh had some crazy super strength when he threw his yoyo, only for it to be effortlessly caught in one hand. The villain proceeded to drag the hero to the floor and swing him into a fresco.

“Oww.” He whined as he slid to the floor, only vaguely aware of the villain name-dropping another Egyptian deity.

“Sekhmet, give me your strength!” He roared, (“You need MORE?!) his baboon head glowing brightly as it transformed into a lion. He marched over to the bars that kept them inside, took one in each hand, and proceeded to wrench them apart with little to no effort.

“Aww, holding the door open for a lady? How chivalrous!” The familiar voice of Kit Noire cooed from somewhere beyond the bars. Before she even had a chance to fight, she was violently thrown past with a startled yelp, landing in a coffin with a dull thud as it closed and slid to the floor.

“Enjoy the sarcophagus.” The Pharaoh sneered.

Mister Bug quickly stumbled over to the coffin and began trying to pry it open.

“This is hecka crazy!” Alya squealed from behind him, prompting him to drop the lid to try and usher her away, “Keep your eyes peeled!”

She suddenly paused as the Pharaoh’s heavy feet landed beside her. 

“Hiya!” She exclaimed uncertainty as his towering form leaned over her kneeled body, “Exclusive interview?”

Mister Bug facepalmed harder than he ever had in his life when the villain grabbed her head, his hands probably large enough to kill her with one squeeze.

“Your face…” He began, shocking both the girl and the hero, “Fate has placed you on my path. Come with me!”

He swiftly slung her over his shoulder and began walking towards the opening he created, pausing only to bend the bars back into place before leaving.

“Hey!” Kit’s muffled voice came from inside the coffin as she pounded on the inside of the lid, “I can’t breathe in here! Plus it’s super dark and it smells like an old dead guy!”

“Don’t you have night vision?”

“I’m claws-trophobic! Don’t judge me!”

“Ha-Ha, very funny.”

“No seriously I’m claustrophobic get me out of here _right now._ ”

“Really?”

“ _Cataclysm._ ”

“No, don’t do that! We need that to get past the bars! The Pharaoh bent them back into place to trap us!”

“Then GET ME OUT!”

Mister Bug sucked in a deep breath through his teeth and pried the lid open as fast as he could. Kit immediately punched him in the face.

“Are you- HOLY SHIT!”

“Sorry! So sorry!” She winced, rolling out of the coffin as she took in a few deep breaths.

“Don’t worry about it.” He sniffed, gingerly touching his sore nose and wincing when it sent a jolt of pain into his brain, “I don’t think you broke it.”

She definitely broke it. He wasn’t gonna say anything.

“That’s good. Good. Good good good.” She said, repeating the word to herself under her breath as she moved to the bars and destroyed them, “I’ll stay here and get recharged. You go ahead without me.”

Mister Bug shuddered at the thought. The Pharaoh had utterly crushed both of them one-on-one, “No. I’ll stay here. There’s no way I could do it alone.”

“Doesn’t the lucky charm give you an object to solve any problem?”

“Okay, yes, I could do it on my own with a lucky charm, but that seems like an unnecessary risk. Besides, I’d feel better about it if you were there.”

“Aww, how sweet.” She swooned as she walked behind a nearby display and dropped her transformation, “You’re great, you know that?”

“Yeah.”

“You know who else is great?”

“You?”

“Me. I’m great.”

**********

After a short five minutes that was awkwardly filled with the sounds of Plagg noisily eating, the duo made their way out of the glass pyramid and positioned themselves on a nearby rooftop, since a wall of mummies blocked their vision from inside.

“I can’t hear anything.” Kit grumbled, cupping her hand against one of her cat ears in an attempt to garner information, “And I have super hearing!”

Mister Bug hummed thoughtfully as he flipped open his yoyo, “Can you tell if Alya is still live-streaming on her phone?”

“Looks like it.”

“Of course she is.” He swiftly navigated to the blogger’s website, the stream immediately popping up as soon as he opened it. Despite being held as a prisoner in the middle of a legion of mummies, she didn’t seem too disturbed. As if to prove a point, she reached up, not a care in the world, and tapped on the Pharaoh’s shoulder.

“ _Excuse me, Pharaoh,_ ” She asked, turning on her reporter voice, “ _but what exactly is going on?"_

The villain folded his hands behind his back as he spoke, “ _I'm going to carry out a secret spell to bring Nefertiti back!_ ”

“ _You're talking about the spell on the papyrus, right?_ ”

“ _Correct! The one hundred mummies and the offering!_ ”

“ _Offering._ ” She paused, “ _What offering?_ ”

“ _To persuade the sun god Ra to give me my sweet princess, I must give him something in return. A pure soul!_ ”

“ _Dude, that's hard to come by._ ”

Suddenly, one of the Pharaoh’s massive hands tightly grappled onto Alya’s chin. Despite his mask covering any facial expression, you could hear the elated smile on his voice, “ _But I've already found her! You look so much like her!_ ”

He pointed to a spot on the papyrus as it unrolled itself, revealing an image of the ‘offering’. It didn’t really look a lot like Alya, but there were dark rings around the eyes, very similar to Alya’s glasses.

“ _Say what?!_ ” She squeaked, terror becoming very evident in her voice.

“Who’s gonna tell him that he’s not Tutankhamun?” Kit nervously asked, bringing a finger to her nose and exclaiming, “Not it!”

Mister But pursed his lips, unimpressed.

“Pad time?” She tried again, lifting a leg to reveal sky blue paw pads on the front half of her foot.

“Toe beans?”

“...Yeah?”

“Okay, the fact that you have toe beans is adorable, but yes, this is a bad time. Plus, you punched me in the nose. I’m not touching my nose.”

“Good point.”

“ _Hold UP._ ” Alya suddenly exclaimed, any trace of fear replaced by excitement as she repeatedly pointed at the papyrus, seemingly unable to form words, “ _Dude, Pharaoh, who’s that goddess with the black spots? It looks kind of like Mister Bug!_ ”

The Pharaoh didn’t seem to know what she was referring to so she guided his head to the small image. Almost immediately, he began growling ferally.

“ _Ladybug, my sworn enemy._ ” He declared, clenching a fist to the sky, “ _She may have prevented me from reviving my princess five-thousand years ago, but I will not allow that to happen a second time._ ”

The two heroes froze as he crushed the ancient papyrus to shreds.

“Five thousand years?” Mister Bug blinked, confused out of his mind.

“That’s not… you?” Kit said. It was phrased as a statement, but sounded more like a question, “You’re not five thousand years old, are you?”

“Of course I’m not!” He exclaimed, angrily gesturing to the remains of the papyrus, “I’ve been a hero just as long as you. But… maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if Alya didn’t know that.”

“Because of the textbook?”

He immediately choked on his saliva and nearly fell off the roof, “You know about that?!”

“I watch Alya’s blog, so yeah. I spent a good thirty minutes laughing at it earlier.”

Before he had a chance to be properly embarrassed, the Pharaoh began chanting along with his mummies. The glass pyramid lit up, sending a beam of light into the air that seemed to tear a hold in the sky, leaving a rotating cloud of darkness.

“The time is at hand!” The Pharaoh announced as a group of mummies lifted Alya over their head and began walking her towards the pyramid, “Awaken, Nefertiti! AWAKEN!”

“Okay, I have a plan.” Mister Bug said, “It’s kind of incomplete but it’s all I’ve got for now. Are you okay with dealing with the mummies while I get the Pharaoh?”

Kit’s nose crinkled slightly as she sent a side-eyed glance to the cloth-wrapped warriors, “Why? They’re super slow and probably can’t do much. Besides, what happened to ‘there’s no way I can do it alone’ or ‘it’s an unnecessary risk’?”

“Well, he needs a hundred of them to complete the spell, right?”

“Okay, I see what you mean. Yeah, no sweat, Ladybug.”

“Unless you want to fight the Pharaoh?”

“No. No I don’t. Besides, you’re the braver one of us. Have fun!”

“Okay, that’s definitely not-”

She sent him a wicked, almost taunting grin as she calmly walked off the edge of the roof, landing beside a stopped car. She placed one end of her staff underneath it with the middle over a nearby bench before scaling another wall like a squirrel.

“This is a distraction!” She hollered as she jumped down onto the staff, sending the car flipping through the air like a catapult had launched it. It landed like a meteor in the closest cluster of mummies, taking them out of commission easily.

“Insolent kitten!” The Pharaoh shouted as she darted past, sweeping the mummies legs out from underneath them as she ran, “Anubis, bring me mummies!”

His head glowed brightly as it changed to that of a jackal. He began blasting lasers from his eyes at Kit, though she dodged each one with ease.

“Aren’t you supposed to worship cats?” She jeered, sidestepping another blast before pointing to her feet as if expecting him to kiss them, “Bow to your goddess, and I may forgive you for your transgressions!”

“You-!”

“BLASPHEMY!”

**********

Mister Bug would never understand how Kit was able to simultaneously fight and insult supervillains so effectively.

“Have fun!” She had exclaimed before straight up walking off a building and catapulting a car with so little effort that it seemed impossible. 

He decided to take advantage of her distraction (he knew that’s what it was because of her loud declaration, ‘THIS IS A DISTRACTION’) by swinging down to the group of mummies that had Alya raised over their heads.

“Alya!” He called over the wind, successfully grabbing her attention from her viewers, “Grab on!”

He reached out to grab her hand, but suddenly was yanked higher into the air. He found himself face to face with the Pharaoh, now donning the head of a hawk as he hovered in the air. Below them, the mummies placed Alya on the beam of light, where she began rising towards the cloud of darkness.

“Horus?” He tried weakly.

“Why must you meddle in the affairs of gods?” The Pharaoh questioned, “All I want is to return my princess to me.”

Mister Bug quickly scanned him in an attempt to find his infected object. The only thing he had that didn’t seem to be attached to his body was the pendant around his neck, so he took a wild swing at it, somehow successfully snapping the string from his neck. Unfortunately, the Pharaoh, in his surprise, dropped him. He would have landed flat on his back on concrete, if not for Kit leaping into the air and catching him bridal style.

“What’s up, princess?” She snickered, landing softly but not letting him down, “Falling for me already?”

“Not quite.” He snarked, “Put me down, I have the akumatized object.”

“You mean the necklace?”

“Yeah?”

“You dropped it while you were falling.”

“WHAT?!”

A light clink dragged both of their eyes to the pendant, which bumped against the ground a few meters away. Before they even had a chance to move, the Pharaoh landed on top of it, arms crossed.

“It’s over.” He said, picking up the necklace.

_He put it around his wrist_ , Mister Bug noted.

“You think now might be a good time for a lucky charm?” Kit winced as Alya screamed from above the pyramid.

“Yeah. Definitely.”

He quietly summoned his power, which dropped a pair of toy earrings into his hands.

“Those seem very useless.” Kit deadpanned.

“I mean… Not really…” He said, uncertainly, “I have an idea. Wish me luck.”

“My superpower is bad luck. Trust me, you don’t want that.”

“Fair enough. Hey, Pharaoh!”

The villain looked over his massive shoulders at the boy, who suddenly felt about a meter shorter, “Yes?”

“Your offering isn’t good enough for Nefertiti!”

“HEY!” Alya screeched indignantly, “WHAT THE FUCK, MISTER BUG!”

“It doesn’t matter.” The Pharaoh said, “The ritual has already begun.”

“But… wouldn’t I be better? After all, revenge is sweet, no? Especially after five thousand years, I’ve heard.”

The villain didn’t respond, so Mister Bug could only assume he was considering the deal.

“Yes, it is true…” He began, “You would make a much more precious offering than this… mortal. Horus, give me your wings!”

The Pharaoh took him by the hand and flew to the top of the beam of light, where Alya’s disgruntled face awaited them.

“ _Sorry._ ” He mouthed as she was thrown off of the beam, falling safely to the ground below.

“Before you sacrifice me,” He said as he was placed onto the beam, “Don’t you need my miraculous?”

He could almost hear Hawk Moth screaming about how this was an obvious trap, but the Pharaoh didn’t seem to care. He just held out a hand, conveniently, the one with the pendant around the wrist.

“Give me the earrings.” He said, patience running thin.

“Oh sure.” The blonde boy shrugged, reaching to his ears and pretending to remove the jewels, “You want these?”

“Stop stalling.”

He shrugged again, holding out a hand over the Pharaoh’s open one. When he opened it, nothing fell. Instead, he swiftly grabbed the pendant and held it up tauntingly.

“You want the earrings, boy?”

“Give them to me!”

“FETCH!”

He threw the toys with all his might, sending them rolling across the ground below. The Pharaoh shot after them like a rocket and nearly caught them, but Kit slid by at the last second and snatched them. He quickly grabbed her by the shoulders, and to his dismay, she tauntingly held up the blinking toys.

“A toy?!” He exclaimed as Mister Bug crushed the pendant in his hand and released the butterfly. The light that held him up quickly retracted into the pyramid, lowering him to the ground without harm.

“I cannot believe that worked.” He gasped as he captured and purified the butterfly, feeling his nose snap back into place as the healing light passed by, “How did that work?”

“Beats me.” Kit snorted, dropping the toy earrings into his hands, which he quickly tossed into the air, “I still don’t get what your plan was.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m just glad it’s over.” He sighed as the miraculous ladybugs swarmed around, returning all of the mummies and the Pharaoh, unsurprisingly revealed to be Jalil Kubdel, to normal.

“Oh man, what happened?” Jalil asked, rubbing his temples, “I have a horrible headache.”

“You were akumatized.” Mister Bug regretfully informed him, “You were a tough one. You had the powers of the Egyptian gods.”

He couldn’t help but smile as Jalil’s face lit up a little.

“Thanks for stopping me.” He said, bowing his head, “I don’t know what happened.”

“Don’t worry about it,” He said, waving the boy off as he began moving back towards the Louvre, “Now… to deal with Alya.”

“Someone say my name?” The reporter asked as she ran over, a glint in her eye as she raised her phone, armed and ready for an interview.

“I did.” Mister Bug said, raising a hand, “So… I saw that you grabbed that textbook I dropped…”

“Oh yeah!” She exclaimed, “Do you go to Collège Françoise Dupont? Are you in tenth grade?! ARE YOU ADRIEN DUPAIN?!”

“It’s not mine.”

“...What?”

“Yeah. I found it in a park. I was planning to return it, but that akuma showed up, and… you know. Did you check if it was signed?”

Alya pursed her lips and brought the book from her bag, flipping open the first page to reveal a completely blank page.

“It’s not… I can return it, though. I’m sure we can figure out who it belongs to.’

“Thanks a ton.”

“Um… so, how old are you?”

His earrings beeped urgently, letting him know he only had a couple minutes left.

“Classified!” He blurted, throwing his yoyo onto a nearby building, “Bug out!”

He disappeared over the skyline, leaving Kit and Alya standing silently.

“So…” Alya began, “Do you like interviews?”

Alya was aware that the media tended to put her second to Mister Bug since he was the one who could repair the damage done by the supervillains, despite the fact that they were so obviously equals, not a leader and a sidekick. She couldn’t even begin to count the times that she’d seen reporters swarm Mister Bug after an akuma attack and completely shove Kit Noire to the side. She didn’t seem to mind, but the way her face lit up upon being asked ‘Do you like interviews’ was something Alya would never forget.

Mostly because she caught it on camera and it may or may not have led to the creation of several hashtags.

**********

“Hey, Tikki…” Adrien asked later that night, after the sun had gone down, “I don’t know what, but something about the fact that I learned what you were trying to tell me from a supervillain makes me question how far you’ll go for entertainment.”

“It wasn’t just for my entertainment.” Tikki insisted, “I genuinely thought you would enjoy a surprise!”

“Well, I was surprised, that’s for sure… I know that wasn’t me in the papyrus… how long have you been around?”

“Well, Adrien, I represent the concept of creation. I’ve been around since the very beginning!”

“I must be a pretty insignificant blip in an immortal life then, huh?”

“No, of course not! I remember each and every one of my Ladybugs. Besides, you are exceptionally unique in comparison. I’ve only ever had one other male holder, an Aztec who went by Mycazoyolin.”

“That’s… pretty cool.”

“You’re unique, Adrien. You’re very intuitive and creative. You’re extremely adaptable. You also have an extraordinary connection to your partner. Ladybugs and Black Cats always have a connection, since they are meant to represent the Yin and Yang, two halves of one whole, but you two, you are most interesting.”

“She’s pretty great, huh?” He mumbled before yawning, “Thanks, Tikki.”

“It’s my pleasure. Now, go to sleep. Don’t forget, you have a history test tomorrow!”

“Trust me, I didn’t forget. I’m so done with ancient Egypt.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the claustrophobia part exists entirely because of Buggachat's comic.


	9. Lady Wifi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm terribly sorry about the wait. After my previous beta left like they did, It kind of kicked my motivation between the legs. I don't plan to stop writing this as of right now, but I can't guarantee that I'll be able to get a chapter out each week from now on.
> 
> Side note, I'm not entirely confident about this chapter turned out. I enjoyed writing it, and I personally like how it went, but there are some things that I'm just not sure about. Le-Magikarp1, my excellent beta, btw, enjoyed it as far as I know, so hopefully, you all will too.

After being Alya’s BFF for as long as she had, Marinette found herself nearly incapable of being surprised when it came to her ‘Mister Bug and Kit Noire’ tendencies.

**Nearly.**

“What are you doing?” The ravenette asked, blinking in confusion as her bespectacled friend held up a small slip of paper, a jagged hole cut out of the center.

Alya hummed thoughtfully as she flipped the sheet around, revealing an image of Mister Bug with the face cut out, “Seeing if anyone’s face matches this. After the whole textbook debacle last week, I just couldn’t get it out of my head that Mister Bug might go to this school. How do we know he wasn’t just… lying?”

_He IS a pretty good liar._ Marinette internally admitted, “Reasonable?”

“Hold still and do one of those model smiles.” Alya ordered, “I need to fit it to your face.”

“Why? Do you think I might be Mister Bug? Wouldn’t I be Kit Noire?”

“Psh! You? Kit Noire?”

“Wha- Hey! W-what’s so crazy about that?”

“Sorry, girl, but Kit Noire? My brain literally can’t even consider that a possibility.”

The blue-eyed girl had to pause to internally fistbump herself for being so incredibly amazing at hiding her identity, “And why is that?”

“Well… for one, you don’t have an eight-foot braid.”

“...Fair.”

“I’ve also heard you outright refuse to say swear words, while Kit Noire has been cited as saying the word ‘fuck’ three times while fighting Timebreaker.”

“Why do you know that?”

“I have my sources.”

“Well… that’s some pretty flimsy evidence. How do you know she doesn’t just act differently or look different when she’s a superhero?”

“Listen, girl, this may hurt to hear, but it’s the truth. You’re cute. Kit Noire is _hot._ ”

“You said that _way_ too confidently.”

“Have you seen those cat eyes? _Chills._ ”

“Are you… in love with Kit Noire?’

“Even if I was, she’s totally head over heels for Mister Bug. I wouldn’t stand a chance.”

Before Marinette had a chance to question how Alya knew that, Mlle. Bustier cleared her throat loudly.

“Girls, please pay attention.” she reprimanded before pausing, looking slightly above Marinette’s head, “Adrien, are you still with us?”

Marinette looked over her shoulder to see a very spaced-out Adrien, though he quickly shook himself out of his stupor.

“Yes, Mlle. Bustier.” He blinked, rubbing his eyes clear of their fog, “I just… blanked for a minute.”

Suddenly, the bell rang, signaling that the class was ending.

“Tonight I want you all to read chapter three of the breathtaking France, the First Thousand Years. Then, answer this simple questionnaire.” The teacher announced as her students began leaking out the door, moving towards the locker room to gather their things.

**********  
Adrien didn’t mean to eavesdrop on Alya and Marinette’s conversation, but when he heard ‘Mister Bug’ brought up, he kind of had a hard time ignoring it. He really wished that wasn’t the case.

_Could Kit really love me?_

It had only been a few minutes, but Adrien knew the topic wouldn’t let his mind rest until he asked her outright. He couldn’t be sure, but… it made sense. She was extremely flirty _all the time_ , Impostor-Bug had outright declared that she told him that she was in love with Mister Bug (though Kit was extremely adamant that she’d never actually said exactly who she was in love with), and she’d kind of freaked out upon being accused of it, something very un-Kit of her.

Plus, he couldn’t even begin to count the times that she’d held his hand a little longer than she’d needed to or straight up kissed it, and the way she just melted whenever he hugged her or called her a nickname with just a little more affection than necessary was just…

_Holy SHIT._

“Adrien, you look like you’re in the middle of a crisis.” Alya oh-so-eloquently pointed out as they moved towards the locker room, “What’s up?”

“Do you actually think that Kit Noire is in love with Mister Bug?” He blurted, way too much worry bleeding into his tone.

“Well… yeah?” Alya said, slightly confused, “Have you seen the way she acts towards him?”

“...Like friends?”

“Blind.”

“What?”

“You’re blind.”

“I don’t follow.”

“BLIND. INATTENTIVE. OBLIVIOUS. These are words that describe YOU.”

The blonde boy rolled his eyes in annoyance as they parted ways into the locker room. 

_Does she love me?_ He wondered as he opened his locker.

_There’s no way. She doesn’t even know who I am._

_She knows you better than most people._

_She only knows one half of you._

_She knows that half better than anyone else ever will._

_That half of you is just a mask._

Adrien decided that giving himself a headache wasn’t going to be very productive, but he couldn’t really do anything about it. The thoughts kept bouncing around in his brain, arguing back and forth like someone was taking a hammer to his skull from the inside.

**********

Adrien couldn’t help the blush from covering his cheeks as he waved to Marinette as she drove off.

_Another reason why Kit can’t be in love with me._ He mentally sighed, _I like Marinette._

_But that doesn’t stop her from liking you._ The rational part of his brain responded.

_It has to. If she does like me, I wouldn’t have the heart to tell her no. She’d be crushed._

_Nah, she’s tough. She’d bounce right back._

_Remember how she acted when Timebreaker killed you?_

_She’d get over it._

_Would she?_

He was suddenly torn from his musings as Alya roughly grabbed his wrist and dragged him behind the walls that lined the stairs. For a moment, he thought she was either going to make out with him or murder him. Those thoughts quickly faded as he realized Nino was there as well.

“Hey.” the DJ waved, uninterested.

“S’up.” Adrien nodded.

“Guys you’ll never guess what I saw in the locker room.” Alya cut them off, speaking in rapid-fire, “I know who Mister Bug is!”

Adrien blanched. Of course she figured it out. Why else would he be here?

“Yeah right.” Nino scoffed, “You said that last week.”

Alya sneered, though she shrugged, “In retrospect, thinking that M. Damocles was Mister Bug was a horrible guess, and I acknowledge that.”

“S-so you know who he is?” Adrien shakily asked, nervously fidgeting with the hem of his shirt.

“Not he.” Alya was quick to blurt, _“She.”_

Both of the boys’ minds went entirely blank.

“Isn’t his-” Nino began.

“Her.”

“superhero name MISTER Bug?”

Alya took in a deep breath and paused before shaking her head and continuing, “I know how it sounds, but trust me, I have solid evidence!”

“Are you gonna tell us who it is?” Adrien asked, all fear replaced by genuine curiosity. What girls in this school could possibly be Mister Bug?

_Marinette would make a great Mister Bug._ He thought.

Alya’s eyes darted back and forth a few times as if to make sure they were alone before she gestured for the two boys to lean in closer.

_“Chloe.”_

Adrien froze. He was stuck between bursting out into hysterical laughter or getting extremely offended. Nino, however, went straight to the cackling like a madman.

“H-h-h-h-holy SHIT!” He choked through his merriment, “You think CHLOE is MISTER BUG?!”

Alya, however, was not impressed, “I know it sounds crazy, but I swear! I saw her taking a yoyo out of her locker that looked exactly like Mister Bug’s!”

Adrien, completely aware that his weapon formed with his transformation, decided now was the time to begin laughing.

“You guys suck, you know that?” The reporter mumbled.

“Al, chill.” Nino said, placing a hand on her shoulder, “We’re just messing.”

“I’m not.” Adrien snorted. Alya flipped him off with both hands.

“Girl, we don’t mean to make you feel bad.” Nino assured, “But… unless you show us some proof, I don’t think either of us are gonna believe you. Ever.”

“Proof, eh?” A twinkle lit up Alya’s previously dejected eyes, “I’ll get you proof. I’ll need help, though…”

“I’ll help.” Nino shrugged, “I don’t have anything better to do.”

“I wasn’t gonna ask Adrien anyway. He’s an ass.”

**********

As Marinette slid into her seat the next morning, she immediately noticed the empty seat beside her. She discreetly attempted to check her phone to see if Alya had texted her, but no messages had been sent.

“Have either of you seen Alya?” She asked over her shoulder, “Is she sick? She hasn’t texted me…”

“Dude, you haven’t heard?” Nino whispered incredulously, “She got suspended!”

The surprised squeak that pushed its way out of her throat immediately rewarded her with a disappointed glare from the teacher.

“No, I haven’t heard!” She furiously hissed, “Why?!”

“Uhm… long story short? She took a picture of Chloe’s locker and that brat accused her of breaking and entering. Or theft. I’m not really sure. All I got from the phone call was that Alya was major league pissed.”

Marinette blinked. Alya _despised_ the mayor’s daughter. Why take a picture of her locker?

“...But why?”

“Brace yourself, this is the kicker. Alya is hellbent on believing that Chloe is Mister Bug.”

_“WHAT?!”_

The teacher was quick to send her to the principal’s office for the disruption. It was a weird feeling. She’d never been sent to the principal’s office before. Something about it gave her an odd sense of satisfaction. Maybe it was just the ‘rebellion, you go girl’ as Alya put it.

_God, Alya is a horrible influence._

“M. Damocles?” She timidly asked as she knocked on the door. From the legends that she’d heard, the principal would get quite angry if you didn’t knock before entering. She heard no response, so she decided to push through the door, albeit slowly.

“Sir?”

Once the door was finally open, Marinette froze. The principal was quite literally paused. A bright pink pause symbol hovered over his chest as he sat, frozen in fear with his arms reached forward as if to block a projectile.

“Oh my god.” She gasped, moving a tad closer to wave her hand in front of his face. He gave no response. Suddenly, the nearby computer monitor lit up, displaying a girl, clearly an Akuma, who wore an entirely black suit with white gloves, a neon pink WiFi symbol emblazoned on her chest.

_“Good morning, Parisians!”_ She flamboyantly announced, _“I’m Lady Wifi, the revealer of the truth!”_

“Alya.” Marinette said breathlessly.

_“For our first exposé, your principal would like to share a little tidbit with you. So, Mr. Damocles, is it true you wrongly suspended a student named Alya today?”_

The recording of M. Damocles sighed in shame, _“Yes, it is.”_

_“So, you were biased? Unfair? Totally unjust?!”_

_“Hnh… Yes, I was.”_

Lady Wifi continued with a few more questions, but Marinette heard none of it. 

“Plagg…” She said nervously, “Am I gonna have to fight my best friend?”

The kwami gave a thoughtful sigh as he floated up to meet her eyes, “Don’t think about it like that, kid. You’re not fighting her. You’re saving her.”

The girl gave him a gentle smile as she scratched the top of his tiny head, eliciting a small purr, “Thanks, Plagg. You may not be easy to deal with, but you always know what to say.”

“I know, I’m great.” He said sassily, “Now come on, we’ve got a BFF to save!”

“Claws out!”

Almost immediately after her transformation finished, Kit had to dive behind the door to prevent herself from being seen. Lady Wifi’s broadcast must have played throughout the school because the students were all sprinting out of the building.

The video on the principals monitor suddenly blared, causing Kit’s false ears to flatten against her head, _“For my next scoop, I'll be taking you to meet the one who's been hiding behind Mister Bug’s mask!”_

The cat-themed heroine placed a clawed hand on her chin thoughtfully. Alya believed that Chloe was the one behind the mask.

**Yuck.**

So clearly, she’d be going to the mayor’s hotel. She could only hope that Alya was wrong. _Very_ wrong.

**********

Mister Bug had a feeling that this villain was gonna be tough. He wasn’t in the right mind, and being in the presence of the one causing that would most likely make it worse. He could only hope that some sort of superhero instinct that made him focus on the villain took over. That or Kit was somehow able to turn invisible. Cats can do that, right?

Those hopes were immediately dashed when he saw his partner crouched a couple of rooftops away, staring through her staff.

“...What the fuck?” He heard her gasp-mumble as he silently landed behind her. Closer inspection revealed that her staff was in camera mode, zoomed in on one Chloe Bourgeois in a Mister Bug costume. He couldn’t help but snort at the thought. If she really was in love with him, she must have been having a crisis.

Much to his chagrin, her cat-ears perked up at the sound of his choked laughter and she spun around so fast that he thought she would just keep going.

He’d never really noticed it before, but Alya was correct. Her cat eyes cause chills.

“Did I walk in on something?” He tried, though it was easy to tell that his voice was strained.

“Just a stupid theory… are you okay?”

“I’m fine!"

_Fuck fuck fuck I responded too fast FUCK._

She blinked slowly and flipped her staff back into its weapon form, “If you say so…”

_OH THANK GOD._

She gave him one of her signature mischievous smirks before gesturing for him to follow and vaulting towards the hotel, never pausing to tell him why or wonder how she knew they were supposed to go there. He didn’t question it, but still.

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” She asked as they landed on the balcony, “You’re not… sick or something?”

“I’m _fine._ ” He stressed. Unfortunately, it came out snappier than he’d intended. The false ears on Kit’s head drooped slightly, prompting his own stomach to drop. _Fucking fuck this is going supremely horrible._

“S-sorry, I-”

“OHMYGOD! MISTER BUG!”

Kit was quick to take a few steps back as the mayor’s daughter tried to hug, nay, tackle her partner.

“Look at us two!” She gushed, gesturing to her own costume, “We match! We’re made to be together!”

Mister Bug couldn’t help but notice as Kit’s lip twitched.

_Is she… jealous?_

Little did he know, she was biting her tongue in an attempt to prevent herself from laughing.

“Chloe-” He tried, only to be cut off by an ear-shattering squeal.

“YOU KNOW MY NAME!”

“We’re here to protect you-”

“Of course you are. Who is more important than _Moi?_ ”

“No, we’re here because the villain is targeting you.”

“Psh! Why would a supervillain come after me? Everyone adores me.”

As if to prove her wrong, her phone began ringing. Something was prodding at the back of his mind, telling him to _stop her you STUPID USELESS._

“Chloe, wait!”

Unfortunately, he waited for just a second too long. The blonde girl lifted her phone and pressed the button to answer.

“Hello?”

The screen began glowing a bright purple, the same as the villain’s markings. Before they could process what had happened, Alya’s villain form was not standing above a frozen Chloe Bourgeois.

“That was too easy.” She mumbled, somehow not noticing the heroes standing in the room. She swiped a finger across her phone, sending a neon circle with a camera symbol into the air.

“People of Paris! I-”

She paused, now noticing the heroes. She looked back and forth between the frozen girl and them several times before finally voicing her thoughts.

“What the hell.”

“What the hell, indeed.” Kit scoffed, “You seriously thought that she was Mister Bug?”

“I saw her with a yoyo! Just like the one Mister Bug uses!”

“Our weapons appear as we transform.”

“HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT?!”

“Well… I mean okay, but it should have been obvious since he’s called ‘Mister’ Bug.”

Lady Wifi’s nostrils flared as she roared, shooting several pause symbols at the heroes. 

“Looks like I have connection problems with her.” Kit whooped as she pounced over one of the projectiles, “Not like you and me, Airplane mode?”

Mister Bug’s stomach twisted unnaturally at the nickname. He felt weirdly insulted, even though he knew he shouldn’t.

“Airplane mode?” he mumbled, spinning his yoyo into a shield.

“Yeah, because your head’s in the clouds, Bug! _Focus_!”

He blinked. She was right. His feet had been firmly planted in the same spot since he landed in the room, and there’s a supervillain _attacking him!_

“Sorry, sorry!” He said, stumbling over his tongue as he tried to formulate a plan.

She yelped, ducking under a pink projectile that sailed inches above her head. It would have sliced her braid off, had she not pinned it to her back, “It’s fine! Do you have a plan?”

He narrowed his eyes at the raging Akuma. Her powers seemed to stem from her cellphone. He thought back to what Kit said about connections, flinching for a moment before steadying himself and nodding.

“Follow me!”

The duo ran across the room, ducking and diving between neon discs the entire time.

“Are you gonna tell me the plan?” She coughed as they dove into a stairwell, one of the discs exploding against the wall above them, raining a shower of dust and rubble on their heads.

“Her powers come from her phone. Phones need service.”

She blinked.

“So we go to the basement. There’s no service there.”

“Okay, but why not just destroy the service box?”

“...”

“Hm?”

“Uh… yeah, that would work, but it’s a little late for that now.”

As if to prove his point, a pause button plastered itself on the wall a few centimeters from his face, sending him into a panicked sprint down the stairs, skipping three with each step. He nearly fell flat on his face as his partner sailed past in a horrifyingly fearless headfirst dive down the central shaft.

“WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!” He screeched, leaning over to see her extend her staff between two railings, catching her just a few meters from the ground.

“It’s called being efficient!”

He clasped a hand over his heart, temporarily ignoring his internal plight in favor of fearing for her life. As soon as he met her on the ground floor, he flicked her on the forehead, “You’re insane!”

“You can’t tell me you haven’t jumped off a building just because you can.” She said, rubbing her face where he had flicked her.

“YES! I CAN! Why on earth would I do that?!”

“Because it’s fun?”

“You and I must have different definitions of fun.”

“The adrenaline rush is pretty awesome. Next time we hang out, You’re doing it.”

“Uh… no? No, I’m not.”

“It wasn’t a question. Besides, you’re the one who swings. You basically do it all the time anyway."

He didn’t have time to think about it, as a door slammed loudly a few floors above them.

“She went back into the hotel!” He gasped. Suddenly, Kit’s slender arm wrapped around his waist as she raised them to the third floor. His mind decided now was a good time to rudely remind him of her potential interest in him.

“Going up?” She quipped as they landed. He didn’t respond, only steeling himself to battle the villain with as few interruptions as possible.

“Okay, rude.” She said, offended, “Are you gonna tell me what’s bugging you?”

“How could you tell?” He miserably asked, hoping to delay the conversation by any means necessary.

“You’ve just been really spacy this whole time.” She said, “Plus, you didn’t respond to my jokes. Usually, you roll your eyes. You deliberately ignored me just a second ago.”

He sighed. She knew him too well, “Can we talk about this _after_ we stop Lady Wifi?”

She pursed her lips, though gave no verbal response as she shoved through the doors that emptied into the massive dining room. 

“This is a trap, right?” She wondered aloud. As if to prove her point, Lady Wifi materialized from a television screen to their right, blasting them with a seemingly infinite amount of projectiles.

“Breaking news, Parisians!” She announced, “Stay tuned, and we will soon find out Mister Bug’s true identity!”

The spotted hero slammed his fists down on a table, flipping it up as a shield to block a seemingly unavoidable disc. It was very ineffective, as the force traveled straight through the object, sending him flying backward into the kitchen. Before he knew what happened, the villain kicked him in the stomach, throwing him into a wide-open freezer. He found himself breathless and freezing as the door was locked from the outside.

**********

As much as Mister Bug may have thought that Kit was blind to his uncharacteristic behavior, she wasn’t. She knew something was up with her bug, just not what. He’d been sounding overly strained and snappy the whole time that they’d been fighting Lady Wifi, and he kept giving her these weird, side-eyed glances that she was positive he thought she didn’t notice.

That worry didn’t cease in the slightest when Lady Wifi locked him in the freezer. Alya may be her best friend, but if she thought she could get away with locking a cold-sensitive superhero in a walk-in freezer, she had another thing coming.

She reacted to that in a way that felt entirely appropriate at the time.

“Oh shit.”

She surged forward to try and make it into the kitchen alongside them but was roughly thrown backward as the door slammed shut, whacking her on the forehead as a pink lock appeared shining through the window.

“Damn it.” She hissed, sliding to the floor to nurse her forehead as a bruise most definitely began forming, “Claws in.”

As the mask fell from her face, she flopped to the floor and curled into a ball. She could vaguely hear Plagg calling her name, but couldn’t focus enough to understand what.

“Plagg.” She moaned, pulling her knees into her oversized hoodie, “Plagg, go help Mister Bug.”

The Kwami made no move to fly towards the kitchen, “Kid, I’m not leaving. What happened? I feel what you feel when you’re transformed, but I can’t see what you see.”

“Head. Hurts.” She mumbled, dropping her head into her hands, “It feels like my eyes are going to explode.”

“So you got hit in the head?”

“With a metal door, yeah.”

He sighed a long and aggravated sigh before floating down to her face and rubbing her forehead with his tiny paw. Something about it focused her thoughts, though the pain didn’t subside in the slightest.

“Kid, I know you don’t feel great. Trust me, I felt the hit. But if you don’t do something, Mister Bug might freeze to death and Hawk Moth will get the earrings.”

“I know. I know.” She said, shakily pushing herself to her feet, wobbling a bit before steadying herself, “Are you good?”

“Don’t worry about me, kid. Just don’t get killed.”

She nodded sharply, trying not to move her head too much, “Okay. Okay. Claws out.”

**********

Mister Bug had accepted his fate. Freezing to death in an industrial-sized freezer. Not a horrible way to go. He’d always thought it would involve some kind of dramatic showdown with Hawk Moth on the Eiffel Tower or something like that, but this was okay too. At least he wasn’t choking to death on a piece of gum or something.

“Well well well, Mister Bug.” Lady Wifi taunted from the other side of the door, “Will you tell us who you are? Or will I have to let you freeze first? I have a camera set up in the corner, so you’re getting exposed regardless.”

“Freeze. One hundred percent.” He stuttered through the cold, “Lucky charm!”

A large blanket fell into his hands.

“Did you just use your lucky charm?” She asked incredulously, “Don’t you only have 5 minutes now?”

“You may have forgotten, but I have a partner. I trust her to get me out.”

He wrapped the cloth around his shoulders tightly, shuddering as his earrings beeped for the first time.

“Oh, her? She’s trapped outside. The only way she gets in is wasting her cataclysm on the first locked door.”

Suddenly, a loud screeching filled his ears from somewhere behind the wall. No, _inside_ the wall.

“What the fuck?” Lady Wifi muttered, sliding somewhere to his left. The wall then exploded, followed by a blur of black and blue that swarmed the villain for a few moments before she was able to narrowly escape, dissolving into pixels.

“Bug! Bug, are you okay?!” Kit’s strained voice said as she punched the door a few times, “Please tell me you’re not a bug-sicle!”

“I-I-I’m okay!” He shivered, “I’m really cold though! How did you get here?!”

“Dumbwaiter.” She spat, “Cataclysm!”

As the door disintegrated before his eyes, he was met with a shocking sight. Hidden behind her messy bangs was a nasty purple bruise.

“What happened to you?” He exclaimed, rushing forwards to wrap her into a hug, “Are _you_ okay?”

“I got hit by the door.” She muttered, her words slurring together as she spoke. She melted into his embrace as they sank to the floor, “Sorry I took so long.”

_“What a nice surprise!”_ Lady Wifi’s voice taunted from somewhere to the side, _“I was going to leave her for later, but this works too! Now, my fellow Parisians, we will finally see the true identities of our so-called heroes!”_

Kit sent a lackadaisical hiss at the camera symbol that hovered in the corner of the room before twisting her arms around her partner and burying her injured head into his neck.

“I’m making an executive decision.” He whispered to her, “You’re done.”

“No no no no no…” She insisted, trailing off into a black hole of ‘no’, “I can fight.”

“Do I need to spell it out? D-O-N-E done.”

“Who says you get to make decisions? You’re not the leader.”

“Right now I am, and I’m telling you to stay.”

“I’m not a dog.”

“STAY.”

“Fuck you.”

“I’m serious, stay here and rest. I’ll beat Lady Wifi and it’ll heal you.”

She hummed contemplatively, rolling her head back to wearily look him in the eye, “That sounds nice.”

He nodded gently, lowering her head onto his bundled up lucky charm, “Don’t worry. You’ll be better before you know it.”

“Nnnnnnooo.” She groaned, “You’ve been totally out of it all day.”

“I will be _fine_.”

“We still have to talk after you win though!”

He sighed, gently pushing her back to the floor to rest, “Meet me on the roof after you heal. And recharge too, I have a feeling that it’ll last longer than however much time you have left.”

“You recharge!”

“What?”

“You only have like two spots left. Two or four, I can’t tell. I think I’m seeing double.”

As if to prove her point, his earrings beeped. 

“Good point.”

He quickly scanned the room. He was pretty sure he didn’t have to worry about Kit looking when he detransformed, but Lady Wifi had a camera set up in the corner of the room.

“Don’t worry, I won’t look.” Kit mumbled, rolling to the side and wrapping the blanket tightly around herself.

“I know that. I’m worried about the camera.”

“Camera?”

“Camera.”

“Just cover it with a dishrag or something.”

He blinked. It sounded so obvious.

_Am I being outdone by some who’s half-conscious and probably concussed?_

He didn’t dwell on it for too long, quickly grabbing a washcloth from the nearby dishwashing station and wildly flicking it in the direction of the camera. To his delight, it came to a gentle rest atop the camera, _hopefully_ blocking any view from coming through.

The muffled roar from Lady Wifi (somewhere several floors above them) confirmed it.

“Did it work?” Kit slurred as her ring beeped again, “Plagg wants out.”

“What?’

“Claws in.”

Tikki would probably give him the reprimand of a lifetime later for this, but as her transformation fell, he couldn’t help but stare. He could never really see it on himself, and something about it was just…

Mesmerizing.

“Don’t look.” She halfheartedly hissed, swiping at him with her declawed hands, “You’re not supposed to look.”

He quickly spun his head away from her and dove behind the counter to release his own transformation, “I didn’t see your face, I swear!”

“What did you see?”

He paused. He’s mostly seen her hair. It was a few shades lighter than normal, and nowhere near as long. That, and her hand, but for that to tell him anything he’d have to be able to match her fingerprint to someone, and that, unfortunately, is not one of his superpowers.

“Your hair?”

She sighed lightly, somehow curling into herself even more, “You’d better not figure out who I am over this.”

“I won’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I won’t! Even then, why do you care so much?”

She hummed thoughtfully, shuffling beneath the blanket ( _Why didn’t it disappear?_ ) before speaking, “I mean… I’d love to know who you are, Sunshine, but… I don’t want to know because of something stupid like this. And I definitely don’t want my first impression as a civilian to be a discombobulated, semi-there, probably concussed version of me.”

He shrugged to himself, handing a cookie to Tikki so she could recharge. He wouldn’t want that either.

“Besides,” She continued,” I always thought it would be this… special moment. Not some ridiculous accident. Like… we’d meet up at the top of the Eiffel Tower just as the lights came on, and then drop the transformations, and everything would just be… _right_. Just you and me... standing on top of the world.”

As Tikki silently waved to get his attention, letting him know that she was recharged, he couldn’t help but shudder. Regardless of how much he agreed with her sentiment, it just sounded too…

Until he had verbal confirmation, he was just going to do his best to ignore the thought.

He nodded, summoning his transformation as he stood, “Don’t worry, Kitty, I’ll fix this. Try not to die while I’m gone. Your Kwami can tell you when the lock disappears on the door, right?”

“Kitty…” She purred contently, “I like that. Uhm… yeah, he can do that.”

“Cool. You said you came through the dumbwaiter?”

She slowly pointed to the mangled door that used to go to the service elevator, “I kind of broke it.”

He sighed, moving towards it anyway. He didn’t need the actual elevator, just a way out of the room, “I’ll be back soon. Don’t worry. And cover your face, for god’s sake.”

**********

Mister Bug wasn’t ashamed to admit that he wished he had his partner’s diminutive form when he tried to fit through the service elevator. Sure, he fit, but it was much too cramped for his liking. The time it took to reach the top floor was minimal, yet it felt like an eternity, and as soon as he left the shaft, he was almost immediately fired upon by the villain.

“You know, It should have been obvious that you’d know where I was going, considering that you had that camera on us the whole time.” He remarked, ducking into a nearby stairwell as a neon disc exploded against the wall behind him, “What do you say we take this to the roof? I heard the stars are beautiful tonight!”

Yes, he knew that was something that his partner would have said, and no, he did not care. After all, someone had to say it. 

Knowing her, she probably still said it. Her timing isn’t fantastic, but she never misses an opportunity.

He shoved through the doors to the roof, pausing to take a few deep breaths. The sun had gone down in the time that he’d been inside the building, so it was noticeably more difficult to see. If not for Lady Wifi materializing atop the service tower, he doubted he would have ever been able to identify it in the darkness.

“Look what we have here!” The villain exclaimed joyfully, “Mister Bug, all alone without his loyal kitty cat.”

“How's the view from up there?” He called, throwing his yoyo forward and wrapping it around the pole, “Not great, I assume. I’m willing to bet that Hawk Moth didn’t give you night vision.”

She paused, blinking as a neon moth mask appeared around her eyes, “Yeah, Hawk Moth, why didn’t you give me a dark mode?”

Mister Bug couldn’t help but laugh. He’d always pictured Hawk Moth as some sinister fossil of a man, maybe in his forties or fifties, so all he could imagine Hawk Moth saying was something about how he doesn’t understand technology. He took advantage of Lady Wifi’s confusion to yank on the yoyo string as hard as he could, bending the service tower to an angle that most certainly broke it, simultaneously sending Lady Wifi to the floor and knocking her powers out of commission.

“No!” She shrieked, desperately attempting to pause him, only for the pink missiles to sputter out of existence halfway to him.

“Tough break.” He shrugged once more, “You may as well give me the phone now.”

“Fat chance.” She hissed, lunging at him in a blind rage. She was surprisingly well versed in hand-to-hand combat, though it only took a few seconds for him to take the phone from her grasp and crush it.

“What- Mister Bug?” Alya said dazedly as returned to normal, “Whoa, Mister Bug! Can I get an interview?!”

He wordlessly pointed to her pulverized phone, eliciting a horrified shriek from the girl.

“Dude, WHAT?!” She gasped, scooping the destroyed device into her hands, “I thought one of your powers was fixing everything after a battle!?”

“You don’t seem very worried about the fact that you were akumatized.”

“Well… You stopped me, didn’t you?”

He shrugged, “I guess so. Don’t worry, I’ll fix your phone once Kit gets here.”

It took a few minutes, but soon enough, Kit Noire emerged from the stairwell with a bundle of fabric in her arms.

“What happened to her?” Alya whispered as the heroine latched onto Mister Bug’s side tiredly.

“You kind of hit her with a door. A very heavy metal door.” He muttered, silently summoning his secondary superpower. He turned his head down to his partner as a wave of red magic flooded past them, letting out an audible sigh of relief as the bruise on her forehead faded.

“How do you feel?” He asked, gently rubbing her hair as she released him from her grip.

“Fantastic.” She purred, “I feel like I weigh less than air.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“Considering that my entire body felt like lead a few seconds ago, yeah.”

Suddenly, she shot up straight, eying her partner warily, “You’d better not have forgotten that we need to talk.”

“Shit.” He cringed violently, “I hoped that you would have forgotten.”

“Unfortunately, memory loss did not come with the concussion. Talk.”

He ran his hands down his face, sighing loudly as he tried to come up with the right words to say. Now that his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, the discontent on her face was clear.

“Well?” She inquired, tapping her foot on the ground a few times, “I’ve got all night.”

“So… I heard some… _things_ … from some of my civilian friends…”

She blinked, tilting her head to the side, “Okay?”

“Those things may or may not have involved a very personal question that may or may not have involved the two of us…”

“If you don’t get to the point I may or may not punch you.”

“Kit, are you in love with me?”

She froze, the natural paleness of her cheeks brightening even further as she tried not to let her internal screaming become external.

_Holy FUCK._ Her brain shrieked, _Is it finally time?_

The encouraging thumbs up from Alya behind Mister Bug wasn’t much, but it was enough. 

She took in the deepest breath of her life and stared him straight in the eye. “Yes.”

Mister Bug’s face went whiter than a ghost dipped in baking soda. He opened his mouth to respond, sending a wave of panic coursing through Kit’s veins.

“I mean YES!” She blurted, cutting him off before he had a chance to properly respond, “Yes, I’m in love with you! I guess… It just makes sense, doesn’t it? Aren’t we like… the yin and yang? Creation and destruction? It’s like we were meant to be together! Opposites attract, right? And I mean… of course, I don’t think that means you’re obligated to like me for any reason, but-”

He cut her off by barking out a laugh, most definitely demolishing any confidence she had left.

“I get it.” He chuckled, “It’s like… a bit.”

“A b-bit?”

“Y’know, like what a comedian does? It's a front. A routine. A joke.”

If her heart was made of porcelain, it would have shattered.

“Y-yeah.” She stuttered out, refusing to meet his eyes, “A joke. That’s what it is.”

Unaware of her immeasurable disappointment, he gave her a light hug before swinging off into the night. As if it couldn’t get any worse, Alya decided to remind Kit of her presence with a very well placed, “Holy SHIT.”

“I should have stopped at ‘yes’.” She mumbled, “I need to go lie down. Lie down and die of humiliation.”

Alya took in a deep breath and tapped her phone screen, causing it to play a dull beep that Kit recognized as the sound a phone makes when you stop a recording.

“What the- Were you RECORDING THAT?!” She screeched, burying her burning face into her hands, “OH MY GOD!”

“Whoa whoa whoa!” Alya flinched, moving closer to the heroine, “I was recording, but I’ll delete it! Look? Deleted!”

“...”

“Are you okay?”

Kit shrugged nonchalantly, waving her hand in a motion that was universally recognized as ‘eh’, “It’s not the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. Besides, there’s always next time, right?”

The amateur reporter made a few movements that seemed like she was trying to figure out how to tackle the heroine, bringing her into a gentle hug that she gladly returned.

“If you ever need someone to talk to, I’d be happy to oblige.” Alya said.

“Yeah, right.” Kit scoffed, “You just want a superhero to come to your house.”

“Well… I won’t lie, that would be sick as fuck, but seriously, I would be happy to listen if you need someone to.”

Kit pulled out of the hug to rub her eyes clear. She hesitated for a moment but held up a fist. Alya stared at it confusedly for a moment before her eyes went wide in realization and she eagerly returned the gesture.

“Oh my god I just fist bumped Kit Noire.” she gasped.

“Weren’t we just hugging a second ago?” Kit said pointedly.

“Sure, but the fist bump is your thing! You always do it after a battle!”

_Not this one._

“You’re pretty cool Alya.” Kit said, nodding in approval, “Do you want a ride home?”

“OH MY GOD YES!”

By the time Marinette made it home and detransformed, fatigue had already begun to catch up with her. She immediately flopped onto her bed and wrapped herself in her blankets, relishing in the warmth.

“Hey, kid…” Plagg said, floating down and landing on her stomach, “Don’t worry too much about this. It happens to a lot of my holders.”

“What do you mean?” She grumbled into her pillow.

“I mean that my holders have literally never not fallen in love with Tikki’s. I thought I’d get out of it this time since you were a girl, but nope.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. Kid, that boy is a- and I mean this in the nicest way possible- a total dumbass. If you decide to stay in love with him, that’s your call, but I can tell you this right now. It will not be easy.”

“You act like I can just flip a switch and suddenly not like him.”

“Can’t you? Isn’t that how humans work?”

“Plagg…”

“I'm joking, Mari. But seriously, if you want to avoid all that nonsense, I’d suggest finding someone else to go after.”

“Like who?”

“That Adrien kid from your class.”

“Why? Because he lives in a bakery?"

“Well… duh.”

“You know I can bake too, right?

“You’re just telling me this NOW?!”

“I thought you knew.”

“Make me food.”

“Tomorrow, Plagg.”

“I will be reminding you at precisely six in the morning.”

The ravenette gently patted the kwami on the head as she closed her eyes.

 _Adrien, huh?_ She thought as she drifted off to sleep.

That night, she dreamt of blonde hair and green eyes, and Mister Bug was nowhere to be found.

**Author's Note:**

> I've considered writing one-shots about these characters, but I haven't really found any prompts that really caught my attention, so if anyone has a suggestion, I'm open.


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